Selected poems from poems :east, a work in progress:



giscome


grey owl (


where bateman creek runs ofver the bridge


) hunts,
and has no tricks to it.


fly, 
catch.


simple.


it is the rest of the world
which is an incomprehensible trick.








willow river (on portage road, following giscome and giscombe)


mist
is some slmile


the clouds, their rain 
one metaphor or another


hospital creek
is.


i'm too late
again
as i can tell
someone has already taken the poems from this place




bateman creek


the creek has chosen
to be road 
the fish have chosen 
to be rocks


a glimpse of that owl again, 
grey, 
a kite in windless mist, 
an impossible flight. 
it is an effective hunter which deceives it prey


by being impossible.


(of course there were tricks. there have always been tricks.)








newlands


memory 
chopped, pulped


the white, blank.


i am this mill 
consumed by its own sawdust






aleza lake (the nude in the doorway)


driving by 
the (old) house


emerging 
--might have been wearing boots 
(old) penis 
emerged


i'm bracketed between 
many cold thoughts 
and shiver at all that is obvious








upper fraser (a very patient atlas)

the town deleted

the names shrugged off 
street signs 
pulled up & laid down

the map 
has become a place of its own 
and wants the whole page to itself




Chief Running Deer 
for Fred Saskamoose (but i never met the man, he
will say)

 1(elbow, before the flooding of lake saskatchewan)st part: 
the buffalo,explosives

the new lake 
the buffalo,explosives

the new lake 
repeats 
the old sky 
the see isn't among us 
if not waterblind,then explosivedeaf


the buffalo,rendered 
plain and remote 
my limbs frozenbound,but for arms and legs

explosives,the valley arched 
the string 
pulled over waterless waterfulls 
that dream arrowed across my divide

the sleeper,a cairn next the parking lot 
jump,where buffalo 
used to here but 
the archer lost on target,and unable to break free from mode

attack,there is nothing but attack(or maybe reversed peace)

  2(chicago stadium, called up from moose jaw)nd part:
 attack,there is nothing but attack