I am a passenger on a train that leads nowhere and everywhere
When I get to the station, step onto the platform
Welcome me into your open arms, lift my baggage from my shoulders, hold my hand and lead me into the heart of my new city
Introduce me to your history acquaint me with every street sign and alley
Tell me your deepest darkest secrets and I will show you mine
Lead me up the hill let me marvel at the artistry the architecture
Skate me down the canal in frosty weather
Educate me on the politics of my nation
The capitol of my country rests in the capitol of my fantasy
Breathe into me your spirit, great city
You Ottawa, house me in the dormitories of uOttawa
Instruisez-moi dans mes études français
Insegna mi in italiano
Wrap me in a cocoon of knowledge
Acknowledge when I need a break
Feed me a life of colour as vibrant as the red of our flag
Fill me with vivacity, make me a proud resident great city
Take me into your loving arms kiss me under the light of 1000 programs
That you have to offer
I will accept your offer
Thank you for the scholarship
Your generosity with scholarships
Welcome me aboard your ship and I will be a tenacious crew men
Surround me with men and women to guide and inspire
Inspire me to become the person that I am destined to be
and let me make a home in you Ottawa

Timothy Yan, that was his name
I miss him, still, 71 years later
I don't know if he's alive now
Nor, really did I know then in 1942
We were kids, he was 11 and now
would be 82 or 83
I don't know if he'd remember me
But, I remember him
and will forever
He was Canadian
He was my best friend
His family was Japanese
We'd come from Ontario, Burlington
Work brought dad west
So, we settled in a suburb of Vancouver
Tim's family had been here for a few years
There weren't a lot of Japanese in Canada
He was the first one I saw
We didn't have any in Burlington
So as I know
We lived on the same street
Went to the same school
He was Canadian
We played baseball, road hockey
football, we were brothers
blood brothers, we were a team
We moved west in 1938
I met him that fall in school
We were instant friends
The day I saw that St. Louis Cardinal hat
stuck in his pocket, all rolled up
He'd be Stan The Man, I'd be Red Russer
He was Syl Apps, I was Sam LoPresti
I was Turk Broda, he was anyone he wanted to be
We were both Joe Di Maggio
We were brothers
I remember the noise first
Great big Army trucks,
Olive green
All up the street
Not just at the Yan place
The Yokishuris, Wans, and Timmy's Aunt too
Soldiers, loading the trucks
We weren't allowed out to see
Notices had been posted though the door
We could only watch and wonder
They were being moved
They scared the powers that be
Little Japanese families
Many born here
Scared the powers of  King in Ottawa
And they had to be moved
Inland, to the Okanagan Valley
To Camps, in Canada, their country, Camps
Canada was at war
With it's own people
With 11 year old Timothy Yan
Ever since Pearl Harbour
Ottawa got scared
Japanese fishermen in the west
Japanese fighter planes from the east
There had to be spies in British Columbia
Tim Yan was apparently one of them
They were told their property was safe
All their goods in storage
They were lied to
A month after they left
The auctioneers came in
Everything was sold
Everything...
I hope he kept that hat
Dad bought what he could
So did other neighbours
I still have the boxes
Never opened
Waiting for the Yans,
I miss Joe DiMaggio
I didn't understand it then
And I don't now
My teachers couldn't explain it
My minister said it was the best
That didn' t help either
What best?
Who decided what was best?
Best for who?
It wasn't best for me, or Tim
Nobody asked us
He was just gone
I spent years looking for him
He never came back after the war
They were moved further east
They were sent to Japan
He was from Canada
Why would they send him to Japan
He was gonna be the first Japanese big leaguer
I hope he made it
I grew up and became a lawyer
A citizenship lawyer
This was not going to happen on my watch
To anyone again
Not while I was around
I miss him
He went to war
And never fired a shot
He went to war
And never knew why...

Diaspora
From the Greek

When I heard the word I felt it
And I looked it up
In my old red dictionary

I could have used the Internet,
I suppose

But I like to run my forefinger down pages
Of words

I read the definition
And I felt it
Oh

Oh
We are diaspora.

Am I using it correctly?

We are a diaspora.

Diaspora
From the Greek

From the green valley of Ottawa
From Scotland
From Ireland on wooden boats

From the French village thirteen children
From the mines in the North
From Poland and from Germany

From the churches and
From the Blueberry patches
From the Island Manitoulin

From the dark lake Kagawong
From Kinburn and Arnprior
From Markstay and from Sudbury

From Waterloo
From Kitchener, Michener
From the Suburbs

Oh

From the Suburbs
From the red bricks, red currants
And geraniums
From green island cabins

From the desert

Oh

From the desert
From the potholes and pipes
From the salty wind
Cracked Caspian Sea
From the middle of the east of nowhere.

From the mountains

Oh

From the mountains
From the crystal water fountains
From the tram bells
On the cobblestone streets
From the torrents of the Rhein

From the white cross

Oh

From the white cross
On the green hill
From the river Laurence
From the French and from the English
Plains of Abraham

We are diaspora
We are a diaspora

Diaspora
From the Greek

How did it end up here on my tongue?

It is diaspora.
It is a diaspora
Diaspora is a diaspora

And I wonder if it misses its other pieces
The way that I miss mine

Ours

There is no
Roping us back together now

There is no
Home to go back to

There is no
Point of meeting
Of reunion

No
White steeple in our old town

No
Yellow slide in our backyard

No
Old folks on an old farm

No
Walled house on a hill

No
Luzernerring 93

No
Familiar riverwater

There is no
Ancient Greek anymore
Diaspora

Only fragments of fragments
Of roots of stems of words
In different dialects

There is no
Place for you to belong,
Diaspora

You’ve been sliced to pieces
And scattered
Into the wind

But
When people ask you
Where you are from

You say simply
From the Greek

Oh

From the Greek

And
When people ask me
Where I am from

I say simply
From the diaspora.

We're mostly gregarious and polite,
Like most of you.
We too have our diplomatic trips 'n bumps;
We never cozied to Dicky;
But welcomed ex-pat refugees
For safe and sound reasons.
After the jimmy-rigging, how many re-pated?

And we gagged on the impeachables, all fuzzy and bitter.
He called the father that ******* in Ottawa;
And Pierre wore that moniker like The Order of Canada.
When you're not liked by one, you're a dove.

You should visit CANDU.wow
It has it all.

How is Supreme Leader managing?
Are his...
Are my people... sitting at attention.

We could real news a bomb a la Kim Jong,
Or flip a stone down at Port Huron.
We won't.
But we could if we weren't
The Great White North, so accommodating, so polite,
So Coo loo coo coo coo coo coo cooo! nice...
(for now)

He is a bookworm humming marching tunes with a caribou.
They smell the sky, hear the sand, see the bright red light with their tongues.
Ed Ed the Knucklehead hides his hands in Ottawa.
Ed never hid his hands, he revealed them for all to see.
Splish-Splash, Splish-Splash, his webbed feet slap the tiled floor,tasting, tasting, tasting.
Walking, walking, walking
The foul-smelling wall of hunger screams empty codes at the freezing sun.
"Calculus," whispers Ed, "I want more Calculus."
The math will sneak by, he will feel its shadow; but not yet.
Sour triangles whirling openly greet the visitors.
Powerfully they mask their entrance embracing fraudulent identities.
The caribou now speaks his truth, "Ani rotzeh tachtonim."
Blindly the door opens and reveals all that the caribou desires stripes, rainbows, little flowers.
Down the long pathway to nowhere.

Written for a school project*

September 09, 2013

To: Evan Riddle
From: Granddad

Well, I understand that you would like to have a letter from me, recognizing certain traits, and accomplishments, and so forth. Begging your pardon, I will begin in this manner.
A couple of years ago, during a"pre-game warmup" prior to the start of one of your games, I was standing behind the glass watching the pucks bounce off your chest. A young boy, perhaps a year younger, came up, stood beside me, also watching you. He then turned, yelling to a friend, "here he is, #41!"  He was quickly joined by his friend and another, all three watching you at close range.You have no idea how that made me feel. How proud of you I was, that apparently your reputation was developing among your peers within the "ice crowd."
In my home, on a wall, is a photo of you, taken during the All-Star game in Ottawa, Canada. You, wearing the red and white All-Star jersey,  standing in front of the net watching and observing the action that soon would be coming at you.
This is my favorite photo. The expression on your face silently reflects your abilities to "focus" on what you are supposed to do, the "determination" to do it, and the "perseverance" to get it done. Three traits that have followed, and stayed with you, and guided you to be successful, in all you have accomplished in both sport and academic activities in which you have participated. You are respected by your team, your coaches, your teachers, and your classmates. You can't have better than that.

Love you,
Granddad

Blair Station & its "middle of nowhere, yet
                             middle of everything.." feel
        Sunday night groceries & the shelves
        would always scream of emptiness
                                         because it was Sunday night
                                                                        after all

concrete madness & bored
                               teenage tags & teenage riots

a thousand times (it feels like..) walking
                                                                toward nowhere..
                                                                toward somewhere..
                                                                toward nothing..
                                                                toward everything..

As the sun sets
I find that
There emerges
Two different moons
In the blueish
Pink sky

Ottawa parkway
There is a tree that is blocking
My view of the
Sunset
As a park my car
Maybe the tree
Adds to the view.
Hmmmmm

You promised you’ll fly me to Ottawa, the Pacific pulling us miles away while the waves crest and crashed inside me, birthing life, presenting us a single heart that will beat to infinity, with the comfortable doubt of whose infinity will be reached first. Second. Third. And during the fourth of July instead of being out in the placid air that penetrates, we protected our glass heart under the pristine sea of blankets, the booming of fireworks at the other end of the world bearing themselves barely audible, but whispering in the whimper of the billowing winds. That matters not anyway, because they’re all but fleeting images that slips through minds like silk, transient and unfeeling. People oftentimes sees them in a myriad, but who knows maybe deep down, they are just like us both, gradients of black and white, the intensity grey. You mused your longing for a gentle touch that is almost maternal, condensing your grey into a video call, thirty six hours and counting, filled with surrealism as we wandered along Windsor Corridor, all the shoving and bustling momentarily slowed. Was it because you captured me with the archaic Japanese camera you scored at the flea we spontaneously hopped to at Sungei road? What it shows, is that we remain, and have always stayed grounded, to the roots of our past. There is where we began, where our souls belonged, and where nothing, not even the willows will shake our fragile heart apart. I do not proclaim ‘I love you’, for your name is inscribed somewhere in between the lifelines on my right palm. Believe me sweetheart, you’ll cross my mind whenever I hold the pen to fight the battle in my mind, and believe me, I will live on with you on me, in me, forever, till I depart.

Rest in peace, my soulmate.

The spirit of Christmas was here again
As they rocked on up to my door,
The aunts and uncles and cousins, all
I’d not even seen before,
They’d smelt the turkey, they’d seen the tree
With its lights, red yellow and green,
They’d even come with their knives and forks
In case that my own weren’t clean.

They came in a rush at twelve o’clock,
‘Now we’re not too late, we trust?
We got caught up at Aunt Mary’s, then
We missed the eleven-ten bus,
She says she’ll not be cooking this year
So we didn’t have time to lose,
She’ll hurry along with a minute to spare
As soon as she puts on her shoes.’

I said, ‘Oh good!’ as they filed on in
To wash their hands in the sink,
Then counted heads and I gulped and saw
The turkey begin to shrink,
A single bird for eleven heads
Or twelve if you counted me,
I might just get a wing and a prayer
When feeding this family.

They found the chest with the beer in ice
But there wasn’t enough for all,
So they corked and drank the fine Rosé
That I’d had displayed on the wall,
They ground the peanuts into the rug
And they spilled Chablis on the couch,
Then kept on stumbling over my feet
And all I could say was ‘Ouch!’

They sat around with an hour to wait
While the turkey started to brown,
And talked of family members that
They thought were coming on down,
But then the topic they all enjoyed
Was raising its ugly head,
‘You’d never believe,’ said Cousin Steve
But Auntie Caroline’s dead!’

‘I heard she fell from the Pepper Tree
With the pruning shears in her grasp,
Into a deadly swarm of bees!’
You could hear the others gasp.
‘And George, remember George, he was
Your Uncle’s cousin’s son,
He fell right under a train; they said
He had a blindfold on.’

Then Gustave from the German branch
And Heidi from the Swiss,
Had both expired in some dread fire,
I’d not heard any of this!
‘Delaney died in Ottawa
When he fell dead off his horse,
And Orson choked on a bottle of coke
That was really chilli sauce!’

I cleared my throat before I spoke
‘I would hate to interrupt,
But listening to your Death Watch List
Has made my mind right up.
I don’t know a single one of you,
You've not been here before,
But you’ll find who you are related to
If you’d like to try next door.’

David Lewis Paget