September 11
I remember not paying much attention to it.
It seemed so far away, and anyways
I was caught up in my life,
of wanting to change the world.
Later, about ten years later,
over beer and cigarettes
in some all night bar
it hit me. He told me.
Later, much later,
I went to see for myself
his homeland where many are free
to sleep on the street and thousand dollar shoes
are free to step over them.
Now I can’t forget, I see it everyday
in the nightmare eyes of my amigo
the day of the coup
dictated by the USA
order rolled into the cities
bullets flew like airplanes
and people and freedom
on September 11, 1973
toppled like two giant buildings.
Winner of the 2007 CBC Poetry Face-Off in Quebec
O!O!OH CANADA
O!O!OH
Canada!
Our home, not our natives’ land
Let us rise and be worthy of our forefathers—
whose noble courage their hearts did fire
whose mercantile masters their pockets inspire
who left far behind their native shores
and braved the perils of the stormy seas
in search of tea, of spices and nubile Asians
to seek the northwest route to China
but settled for Lachine.
Let us rise and be worthy of our forefathers
whose boats brought guns, rats and diseases
to this quelques arpents des neiges
to this land that God gave to Cain
who first bravely met the pagan Savage
and for God, King and country, toked peace pipes,
planted crosses, lied, signed and broke all treaties
to steal this land for you and me—
For again we need to stand on guard for thee.
O!O!OH
Canada!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
Let us rise and be worthy of our French forefathers
who are now famous streets, parks, and bridges
who brought over those filles du roi to fill the cribs
with future first-round hockey picks
and those coureurs du bois whose great skills: snowshoeing,
paddling, portaging, smoking, drinking, singing,
spitting, telling tall tales and making babies
were surpassed only by their passion for chasing beaver.
Let us rise and be worthy of our English forefathers
who were famous streets, parks and bridges
whose accounting Scots kept the books and cash
in immaculate, pillared banks
whose starved-out Irish filled the factories,
taverns, churches and obediently, annually
made a fresh batch of babies
For again we need to stand on guard for thee.
O!O!OH
Canada!
With glowing hearts we see thee rise
Let us rise and be worthy
of our anthem that we do not know,
of our history that we do not know
of our geography that we do not know
of our languages that we do not know
of our arts that we do not know
of our culture that we do not know
of our immigrants that we do not want!
Let us rise and be worthy of our Queen
who graces our stamps and our money
of our Governor General
who licks and spends our Queen
of our Bloc Quebecois
who Caisse-Pops our Queen
of our Liberals
who pork-barrel our Queen
of our NDPs
who would socialize our Queen
of our Conservatives
who are afraid of our Queens
For again we need to stand on guard for thee.
O!O!OH
Canada!
From far and wide,
Let us rise and be worthy of our too few rich
of our few too powerful
who would be our leaders
whose ships fly foreign flags
whose factories are erected on foreign shores
whose profits are in foreign untaxed shelters
whose exploited foreign workers
dream of coming to these foreign shores
to be free and to do the same.
For again we need to stand on guard for thee.
O!O!OH
Canada!
The True North strong and free!
Let us rise and sit and be worthy to watch
ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN!
and listen to
ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN!
and obey
ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN!
Let us rise and be worthy of America selling us the American Dream
of America deep frying us into Ronald McShits
of America clawing up our minerals
of America chewing up our forests
of America sucking out our oil
of America guzzling down our water
of America kidnapping our citizens to be tortured
For again we need to stand on guard for thee.
O!O!OH
Canada!
God keep our land glorious and free
Let us rise and go then you and I:
Autochthones, Francophones, Anglophones,
Allophones & mobile phones
Let us be Johnny Canuck terrorists
Let us be armed to the teeth
Let us use our weapons of mass destruction
Let us start a Jihad after the playoffs
Let us make them drink Newfie Skreech,
Let us castrate them with PEI lobsters
Let us bust their eardrums with Nova Scotia fiddlers
Let us whip them with New Brunswick fiddleheads
Let us cholesterol them with Quebec poutine
Let us give them the Maple Leafs
Let us blast them with Manitoba winters
Let us pelt them with prairie oysters
Let us stone them with BC pot.
Let us put on our Yukon mukluks & Northwest toques
Let us saddle up our Royal Canadian Mounties
Let us mount our Bombardier skidoos &
bravely, without our passports, ride proudly
into the declining Empire’s headlights.
For again we need to stand on guard for thee.
O!O!OH
Canada
Let us stand on guard for thee
O!O!OH
Canada
We stand on guard for thee
Hostie
Canada Day
It was mosquito season in the land of plenty
at the cottage by a lake in the Gatineau hills.
And I felt like an intrusion in a Tom Thompson painting.
It was Canada Day. The CBC said so.
And thus, in honour of this, they
would only play the music of this great land.
Oh Canada!
All this made me feel like canoeing;
to see, on her birthday, a Canadian sunset.
I paddled along the lakeshore,
the canoe gliding like a line of lyric poetry
and saw things I could not name;
things green and wet and slimy
and sounds of lapping, slurping and burping,
which made me think about the nature of things.
My wonder and reverie ended at a beaver dam
that stood on guard at the mouth of the marsh
as majestic as any Keep.
I entered the marsh in awe
of the imagination and the ingenuity
that made this lushness and rot.
Water lilies beyond similes
embracing the canoe with her green welcome
and the paddle with her thin entwining smile.
Elegant marsh grass, sharp as razor blades,
danced with the grace of Fred Astaire,
across the shimmering stage.
Trees, long dead, stared down in bleached bone silence
and the laced uprooted roots of the fallen
were the temple gates to another garden.
On these grew cool spongy mosses,
soft enough to be diapers and menstrual pads,
by nature savy natives
And among them grew carnivorous plants
with seducing blood-tinged lips
whose sweet breath no insect could resist.
I watched one struggling to get unstuck,
As dinosaurs might have been in tar pits,
Struggle against fatigue, give up and be still.
I was in shallow waters where navigation is tough
and canoes are good for getting stuck on fallen logs
and paddles for tangling among the lillies
I tugged and shoved with city clumsiness
and disturbed a bittern who beat its wings
in a great show of come and get me.
Her bravado,
her huffing and puffing of her chest to distract me
from its eggs was most primal parental.
I turned and slipped from the marsh
and came across a family of loons, whose
eerie tremolo rippled across the lake.
In a gesture of peace, I pulled in my paddle
and listened to it skip across the mirroring lake
and disappear into a brilliant sunset.
I floated between sun and shore,
from one came reflections, from the other
Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians.
Love in Quebec
Love au Quebec
n’a jamais été
un simple proposition
supposition
condition
or position.
Amour in Quebec
A toujours été
bipartisan,
bicultural,
bicameral,
bipolar,
bilateral,
and a bilingual
Plaine d’Abraham.
Oh mon amour
I try hard to be
part of your futur anterieur
while you struggle with my participe passé
but it has always been imparfait
and we never get past the conditional.
Oh love
I mispronounce my intentions.
I try to French you in English
to tongue your impossibly beautiful
vowels and consonants
but more often than not get lost
in your multitudes of exceptions
and sultry syntax.
Mon amour
Comme preuve de mon love toujours
I portage your saint crazy labyrinths
seek your passage Nord-Ouest,
your east and west ends
but your morphed street names
only land me in your cul‑de‑sacs.
And in my colonial zeal
day and night have lustful thoughts
about your splendid seigneuries,
rich furs and syrop dérable succulant.
Oh love
I try to love your missionary ways;
your complex des martyr
that tie us to crosses and bed posts.
On my knees, I scale those Oratory steps
to ask for the miracle of our union
only to find myself in a room full of crutches,
wheel chairs, en solitude and heartless.
Oh mon amour
Comme un maple leaf Romeo
I place you on a pedestal,
I kneel beneath your fleur-de-lys draped balcony;
at the foot of your sensual spiral staircases
so that I might look up your joie de vivre
but your je ne sais pas quoi
always eludes me.
Oh mon amour
Yes, Oui, I confess in every corner church,
beneath the mountain’s cross
and in Westmount’s only dépanneur
that I never take you to your fêtes nationale
or play your spoons.
But je me souviens
you never ask me to dance
under the full clair de la lune
on Canada Day.
Oh mon amour
I watch my Ps and Qs
and when younger and more brave
j’ai voté pour ton independence
That should count for something.
Oh love
I call you on my Allophone;
J’écoute to your beep sonore
and get tongue tied in both official languages.
Oh mon amour
I know I am not easy to live with.
I, too, am set in my ways and traditions
which you see as plat comme roast beef
And sensible shoes.
And I know that my commitment
is filled with words like “perhaps” “peut être
and “royal commissions”.
Oh love
I know that you and I mean different things
when we say “phoque”,
“Québec”, “Kweebek”,
“Canada”, “Oui” and “No”.
And yet when I’m far away:
in Cornwall, Moose Jaw or Victoria,
I feel comme un étranger and passionately
defend your passionate positions.
Un bec, deux becs
Love in Québec
is a two cheek affair in chic cafés
of croissants and cappuccinos,
and smoke‑blue Gauloise air.
And we are always parting,
and always leaving behind crumbs,
full ashtrays and bitter aftertastes.
Oh love
for you j’ai abondonné mes apostrophe,
subscribe to Le Devoir and Allo Police
and enrol my future in immersion classes.
Oh mon mour
I wear my heart on your hockey sweaters.
I bring you bouquets of Ken Drydens and Larry Robinsons
but you only want Rockets and Lafleurs.
I place my heart in your armoire
so in the morning you may see
amidst your cashmeres and pure laines
that I do love you after my own fashion.
Oh love
Let me say in my imperfect joual
that when you say “je t’aime”
candles glow more sensual
Beaujolaies deviens plus aromatiques
and even poutine becomes edible.
When you say “je t’aime”
Chibougamou gets warmer
and I feel shivers up my Baie Como.
When you say “je t’aime”
ice storms become romantic
and even the electricity gets turned on.
Oh love
Say “oui, je t’aime”
and I will say “yes, I love you”
on deviendrait le verbe “aimer”
and we will conjugate our way into heaven
et on parlerait l’autre language.
Love/l’amour,
It’s as simple as that.
C’est tout
That’s it
That’s all.
What Unites Us?
I am glad that this commission is ending on this question. We have heard throughout these hearings what makes us different-from the sublime to the ridiculous to the outright stupid and dangerous.
I have followed the hearings from a distance and with interest that has waxed and waned and mainly through the media whose motto is if it bleeds it leads.
It seems that we have heard from every interest, which makes this hearing in particular and democracy in general, interesting. However, one group I have not heard from which surprised me, are the artists, those supposed antennae of the world, those unacknowledged legislators of the world, those whose visions supposedly outlasts the mundane, the quotidian, the mercantile and the religious. But we have been silent, perhaps because we artists tend to see in and through our work more what unites us than what separates us. But perhaps because artists in Canada are not very engaged with other then themselves or because they do not want to rock the boat for fear of losing government patronage/grant. Since I do not really care whether I get the occasional meagre grant or care if my employer is upset or not, I, not as on behalf of artists but as one want to take this opportunity to say a few words on this closing theme.
Accommodate This
What unites us is that miracle, that curse—
birth
What unites us is that miracle, that curse—
death
What unites us is that miracle, that curse—
the time in-between we spend upon this living globe.
