Driving off on the side roads precarious and dense
with firs holy beneath the florid specter of roseate afternoon,
purified with rainfall on the montane bladed rocks
holding together cliff face edges of highways.
I'm present with my black coffee humming while
folk plays on the radio and my sweater from the
consignment shop is still captured in spellbinding redolence
from the girl of my dreams. Nearby, a hidden path boasts a cliff commanding flowing pacific waters pronounced with gold
among mountains obscured in shadow.
Companions cross the valleys reciting sutras and tracing fingers through this blessed land, treasuring the trees, firesmoke ascending from beyond assembling woods thick and overgrown.
Doe and rabbit bounding from rocky terraces alert and surviving instinctively while riverside cabin homes hide a while yet from the long driveways and cozy mailboxes hand-painted or made of wind-bent tin cans.  
I'm flourishing slowly and with periodical decay in this garden growing while I grow and life is beauty and spasm devils as am I, this I know.

We're matches momentarily lit in the weary hands of stars
to guide them in the darkness.
My hair will gray from death we jest
and I will live before I rest.

As the sun rises,
I see the light dance across your face.
You are asleep
And perfect in your imperfection.
Even the shadows of the blinds
Can't darken my view of you.

Saskatoon girls in their cleats coalesce
To hit hits and spit spits by the Legion Hall.
As custom, proceeding the evening’s last call
good-games are exchanged for high-fives abreast.
Scratching their bites they squint up to the blue,
towelling sweat from the backs of their necks,
they know Jesus is there to see them home.
He's in their lemon lime gatorade too,
He supervises all of the pickup trucks
Country on the dial and dust-dull chrome
In Canada’s rectangular mid-midwest,
defined and deformed by the moistureless squall
that carries the scent of the cereal sprawl
and it’s cinder-grit **** to the pink of the chest.

From the top of the Terminal,
your size was splayed out,
a grey **** carpet for the Red River Valley.
And The Forks right beneath
                      our weary walkers' feet
was a thick drop setting up in the center
of your ash grey forehead.
Traced a thumb down Taché and St. Mary's
to the peak of your left cheek on Fermor.

Your traffic light glance blinked us
                    right to a stop
as blue bomb thoughts and temperatures dropped
at the base of our minds
and your wide, widow's peak sky
formed a cold iron bruise 40 minutes past 5.

I've held your muddy diamond eyes
in mine, how many times?
And you'd sigh, sometimes
         from your North End scar,
but the Assiniboine bends around Wellington Crescent,
a stifled, spiced laugh from the failed rebellion
of your Province's youth.
          And you know I'm no novice
to the uncouth barbs of the Winter,
'cuz you wrapped asphalt arms
                                       nice and tight
'round our shoulders.

Osborne & Morley for an A-frame embrace.
The face of a city, its wrinkles a sketch
of laugh line drives for donuts and coffee.
Crows' feet stretched through The Exchange.

We followed your grin
                from
corner to corner,
from Richardson Airport
to Transcona Yards; one earring a lifeline,
the other, steel bones.
From your St. Norbert chin,
to your twin St. Paul crown,
we would wander,
kiss your River East temple
                  then call it a night.

I have names for every smile you gave me:
Vi-Ann in the Village,
The Toad in the Hole,
St. Boniface Cathedral, that first time
in deep snow.
                 I want you to know,
               you frozen Great City,
your terrible beauty is written on me.

Each side-slanted grin I shared with your sidewalks
               encircles my history now,
                          even still.
Fill an eye with 5 years
                of joyous, drunk laughter
which seeds your purple sand sky with fog ghosts.

Still-frame your patchwork, frostbitten face--
the Perimeter Highway's a jaunt-angled toque;
                                           keeps you warm--
I still wear you
           when late Autumn light takes me back.

i didn't wear my hat, i know
i should have, but i felt rebellious
in some small way, i tried to cheat the day
and paid in tingling pain, sharp aching corners
and a strange sense of pride in my bones warmed me
until just the tips of my ears were left white, dead
yes, dead
but i felt alive

to be in danger and know it, to press on against the cold
to push forward into the wind, though before you is only white
to turn blindly into the storm, to accept the blizzard's strength
to guess what lies ahead in fear and still take the risk
this, to me
is courage

maybe i'm just talking about frostbite like some romantic wound
or maybe we're in danger, you and i
pressing on into the storm despite numbing fingers
smiles frozen, eyes watery
maybe we'll get frostbite in our hearts
but i think it's worth the risk

I know this foreign method
     made my throbbing veins its home
'cuz the familiar's not familiar
     and I'm not fine
          lest I'm messed up on
wine.
     And 9/10 of all the times
I've tried to crack a smile
since I lost you have
turned out as half-assed lies.

I wander streets, worn out,
while I wonder where you are
and what you're thinking about while
     you drive down Henderson...
          I'll try to dry out
          from time to time
        but fall back into bouts
       internal I'm interred in
       eternally--and I'll never win them.
       I'll. Never. Win them.

Not without...

          Sorry...

I meander through months while
     you walk through my mind

--and I'm glad if you're happy?--

     but you were quite angry
    with me that night I took
     and torched our collection
     of 5 years' shared memories
          QUITE ANGRY
             with me.
    And the things you said were mean
          but you meant them.

And you were right
About how wrong I was
how bad I am,
and how I taste
like lemon lies
on the tongue.

     You were right.
     And I'm drunk.

And sad and sorry and selfish
and stupid and absorbed by a
salted skyline of cold, purple steel
          every night.

It *****.

You teach kids for a living,
about the age of 9.
Me? I try to dry out
now and then, time to time,
but it's hard.

And you're far.

And I'd still come if I could,
     but it's hard
     following this heart
     when it's buried
     at the confluence
     of the Red and Assiniboine
          Rivers.

Beneath The Forks...

And that heart? Like the ground above it,
     it's covered
with ******, commercial architecture
and the clothing of bureaucracy,
     but ****,
      we had fun there.

Didn't we...?

Gertrude, Stradbrook, River and Roslyn,
off of McMillan, my thoughts froze on Osborne
A drive through the Village on slippery streets
Bought records, drained pints
                        swallowed down summer nights
Back home in Wyoming--think I'll be fine
                         'til some night, filled to gills
                          trip through streets with a stranger
                          and sing "One Great City"
                          through swollen closed throat

And I remember...

Confusion Corner, commuting through cold streets
Watched you drive as the daylight died
I narrow my Focus,
                                     you eased into traffic
The Assiniboine ran and was watched by Riel

January.
Johnson's Terminal.
London Fogs.
Took Yellow Dogs for long walks
and Exchanged now for then. Snapped pictures, again and again.

Snow up to my hips
Spent a night at St. Boniface
We cased a cathedral, your friends seemed to like me.

Lines ran from reserves, over oceans and borders.
Your hair ran down shoulders, brown waves for a blanket.

Winterpeg, Manitscoldout
Portage & Main
Shivering, smiling
at a Tavern Uniting with friends,
'til we took the King's Head...
We took the King's Head.
Long live the king.

January.
Magic Thailand.
Curry soup, curried thoughts thawing,
melting, falling from pickled brains,
                      through lips chapping

I donned my Tuxedo, chopped down Seven Oaks...
Your Catholic heart spoke
     reached out for St. James.
     St. Vital answered behind Fort Garry's walls...

Our hearts, they were neighbourhoods
And the streets were all salt.

Blistered paint on your blue '02 Focus

To the City Center of the continent's middle
Form a Perimeter
Frame a city
Bullseye, center, a Gold gilded Boy
he leans into sky, as they sing, as I hear.
The road North Ended--November, it was.
I think, one year prior, in Robin's Donuts
front doors swayed, on hinges that sighed metallic,
I caught your eyes--organic, unplanned--
               through fog frosting lenses
Caught them, held on
               Held your deep brown
               In my gunmetal blue

Seasons will chase--haste to follow more seasons
White streaks to green
and the Red River runs.
When they score at the ballpark,
"Go Goldeyes!" the cheer sounds
Cheer. Cheer!
The Guess Who still ****,
but the Jets completed their round trip
"Go, Jets, go!" so the cheer goes.
"Cheers!" Cheers like bells.
             Bells
           Pealing
Peeling like your sunburnt back
            Bells
          Ringing
           Striking
Bells singing long
Bells sounding loudly from Grace Bible Church
  baptizing Baltimore as it kisses Osborne

Bells ringing. Round sounds.
Round rings for fingertips touching
Bells
Round sounds that hang on my neck
and sing me to sleep every night--
remind me how badly you wanted those bells
                I denied you.

They sing "Left and Leaving"
             and show me old scars
          they ring and peal and strike
                         and sing
                         unending.

I remember March of 2008
Dropping my toque in the mud-and-slush street
            We took Pembina Highway
              Ate Vietnamese.

I remember...

Confusion Corner,
Commuting through cold streets,
Watching you drive as the daylight died
In your blue '02 Focus
Ease us back into traffic,
The Assiniboine River.
And Louis Riel.

So tell me...

Comment-allez vous, ce soir?
Je ne suis pas comme ci, comme ça.

I'm tired of being told
To pick a side
To choose a race
Lest it be chosen by archaic values

I'll not be told I'm ''acting black''
Or that I'm an ''Oreo''
For being my mixed bag self
So I'll start a new race

Race is defined by ******* predetermined factors
But my race will be awesome
It won't be exclusive to
Skin colour
Hair texture
Language
Or eyes
Not the Canadian Race (working title)

Do you live in Canada?
Congratulations, you have now joined a new race!!!
Tired being told to choose a race or get called derogatory terms like
Mullatto
Wasian
Half Loser?
Join my epic race!!!
Believe in diplomacy, and using violence as a last resort?
Hooray!!! You should join now!
Tired of having your country be used as a cultural punching bag for America?
A pain deeply felt. Welcome to the Canadian Race.

I'm not black.
I'm not white.
I'm Canadian.