I am disappointed all the time.
Even my funeral will disappoint me.
I will be there;
I won’t even be able to see it;
But I know.
It won’t be what my imagination conjures up,
Of how I am acknowledged.

I am sure people tell me now:
I am wrong;
I am loved;
I do good things.
And that is where I see the alignment with my thinking:
Of course I am wrong,
If I was right I would be recognized for knowing things;
Of course I am loved,
I am married aren’t I?
Of course I do good things,
I am not in jail.
lol! There’s a sad joke in there.

The problem is,
I don’t acknowledge myself;
I let the ground slip under my feet;
The sand slides with the outgoing wave;
And I, always late, shift to something,
Possibly,
but not, as I learn,
More stable.
(Because it’s still sand I stand on).

I guess I don’t know stable:
Stability
Groundedness
Confidence
Direction,
I am sure I don’t understand.

I remember my first awareness of disappointment,
As a kid, seeing myself in the mirror,
I didn’t have black hair!
I didn’t look like Dad!?
Ew… sigh…
I am unrecognizable.
I am nothing.
I am background.

My brother and sister
Have big identities,
And get big attention.
I am the good boy,
I can be ignored,
Because I don’t give trouble,
Because I am background.

My friends
Have big personas
And big identities
And have big attention their way.
I can’t keep up with them,
I am a second thought,
Because I am awkward to demand,
Like a wallflower,
Because I am background.

Can persistent and ingrained humility,
Create and build hubris?
Do I have an unreasonable
Expectation of massive overt
Shows of emotion?
Well that just goes to show,
Doesn’t it,
Even in looking for answers,
I have disappointment in what I find.

— . – —- – —–
(July 2024)

He is better than he ever was

He stepped on the train five hours ago
Then later he stepped off the train
And 50 years of clinging and suffocation
Dust, puffed off his pant legs
With the jar of his feet on the concrete
The dust of others’ ancestors
In his dreams would see him
Had swirled and gathered
In eye holes and laces
And cuffs and seams
As grit and slip
As he had walked the hard packed clay roads and black spruce paths
Trying to be someone good for people.

His clothes were rumpled
But in a way that said they were worn well
That they collaborated with his needs
Of the six season:
In deep cold, soaked drying,
ice-cracking breakup,
exhausting heat, drowning wet,
and freezing over
He had gone out
He had gone here, and here,
And over here,
And in coming home
Realized he had already been home
There. And there,
and over there.
Really now, just like he had two eyes
for seeing himself in the world
For seeing the world in him
For seeing the world as the earth and people it is
He had two homes that would hold his heart
And his brain
And his life
In the dust that rises from the ground
In the rain that falls from the sky
In the green that smells from the trees
And in the muffled scuff of mossy swampy ground
He had been walking on and perhaps never quite understand
Until
Until
Until
The bend of a river tells the story
The tilt of the head of a black spruce nods in knowing
The crinkle of old man’s beard scuffs fingertips
The startle of fish jumping out of water beats a rhythm
The look of a raven or crow pierces his guilt
The break of a mouth into a smile
And the run of feet into his arms
The smell of cedar wafting hot on a feathered breeze
The choke of smoke from afar, from near, from fire
And fear for others camps feels somehow personal.

Five hours
Were fifty years
How could that be?
It felt like time travel
But it was only train travel
On a train that I thought was leading
Was really guiding
A little seed of a dream
Back into what I likely knew all along
But ignored and resisted
Until
Until
Until
The land suddenly seemed to stop resisting
And the water suddenly tasted new
And the natural beauty of the earth appeared sunlight bright
And the people’s stories became aha moments of breathing.
The moose knows with a munching raised eyebrow
The goose reminds with return flight
The pike flows up and back
And the crow laughs
Silly old you, you were always here, you never left
You can be here AND there
Do you see that now?
Do you see us now?
Trickster got you! Ha ha ha ha ha ha…

… . . …. . ….. ……… .. ……
Moose Factory, ONR train, May 10, 2024

If I was a skater
I would think I was on a conveyor belt

Ice
Road
Skating
Conveyor belt
Teeth chattering
Glasses bouncing
Might as well be a concussion.

— . – —- – —–
(spring 2024)

Are you provoked?

Good.

Now stop moving,
Pause,
And think.

What was I trying to say to you?
Because I love you.

Why I left
(A song about academe)
(And about decolonization)

Learning had stopped
Probably for years
Before I had arrived

Being a learner
Entering a non-learning place
Means unlearning
How to be

This was not
The unlearning
I was looking for

Because everyone who arrived
To figure things out
Felt angry and disillusioned

Being a learner
In a non-learning place
Means cementing feet
In anchor blocks of drowning

Being a learner
In an unlearning place
Means forgiving oneself
Of how to be

So I have left
To find my learner
And drag myself out of
An ocean of stagnant water

And now I am unlearning and learning
And I am forgiving myself
And my heart and brain

Can see.

— . – —- – —–
(spring 2024)

Professionalism?

You mistake my humility for weakness
Your excessive need to talk over me,
Demand to have a win,
But not do the work of reading,
And acquiring the knowledge,
from which to understand what I have said,
Is unbecoming.

— . – —- – —–
(spring 2024)

When we are both very foolish

Unrequited unsaid unable

We say the things that are in our heart
We yell them
We hurl them
At the one we
Hate
Love

What is inside
Becomes the outside
And we cannot get
That we gave our selves away

The power we carry
Doesn’t get used
For gentle, caring, gestures
It is a strike and concussion

Our heart is quiet and gentle
Even in breaking
Our mouth is hard and cutting
Even in repentance and apology

— . – —- – —–
(spring 2024)

Did I come from a world of eternal light?
Can I live in a world of eternal light?

Perhaps.
It would mean there has never been a sunset
And a sunset would mean the end of the light
For a bit
For ever
My time is hard to tell
But a sunset could mean I lived a good day
There was value and sense and creativity

A sunset could also mean 
Things got dark at the end
A slow, or fast, traumatic roll into darkness

I might mean there has never been a sunrise
Because a sunrise would mean there was darkness before
For a bit, likely for awhile
The time is hard to tell, 
But a sunrise could mean I emerge out of a darkness
And into the beauty, colour, and opportunity of a new day

A sunrise could also mean 
The end of dark
A gentle and easing spread into the light of life.

Is it a human failing that we need to make a darkness
To shut out the light 
Close our eyes to the world around us
And sleep.
Are our dreams just our mind trying to convince itself we are still awake,
And still in the light of day?

Is it a human condition
Of really knowing love, and life, and friendship, 
That we practice a faux death 
Of darkness and quiet and solitude
In sleep
So that we can find a next day
That brings light and joy and possibilities?

Do we die a thousand deaths
So we can live a thousand lives
Experience a thousand loves
Know a thousand friends.
And be creative, beautiful, and together?

Is this what my sleep is supposed to be?
Can I finally relax into the night
Not fight the supposed demons 
Of under bed horrors and back closet floor monster 
But let my sleep, 
Let me,
Let go of the day
(Whether good or bad)
And find the calmness of endearing, enduring, enlivening life
At the end of opening lids in the next morning?

— . – —- – —–
(spring 2024)

I put on my nicest shirt
Paired with black jeans
Because
That’s really all I had
Except for Carhartt work pants 

She said
Let’s go where we can have
A red steak dinner
I was IN
Because I was thinking
Red means sex!

I was pumped
I even masterbated
Before I left my place
To ‘take the edge off’! 
lol!

I arrived 
She arrived
I already had wine at the table
She said
That’s quite anticipatory

I said 
Yes
It is.

Death was gorgeous
She had on
A flowing black spaghetti strap gown
Spectacular bling
Over her shoulder
A D&G bag to hold all the pieces 

She sipped
We supped
The wine bottle never emptied
I got drunk
…but so suave, I must say.

She took turned her head
Coughed a gentle phlegm 
And placed it into her handkerchief
And I erupted in my pants 

She was beautiful
Everything I had imagined
The LOVE of my life
The goddess of love my eternity 

She took my hand
She led me
Unpaying from the table!
Out, side.

I 
Fell into her gaze
I
Was lost
In her minor and major

So warm
So calm
So comforting
So …hard as a rock

Then, 

Her face dropped
Her mouth extended
Her lips enveloped
Me

And I was 
Fucking in heaven
And when my body had exploded into her
She looked in my eyes

Can we go home now
I asked
Yes, she breathed
And I was swallowed

Gone
Into 
The
Nothingness

Of eternity

Of solitude

Of … the calmness i never thought was possible without …

But with…

Death.

— . – —- – —–
(spring, 2024)

(Moose river from ONR train, winter 2024)