25 December 2007
goodnight father christmas
sav. two episodes of grey's
anatomy [ I can't believe he
crash. ]
two t-threes. th close quarters
of because. three lakes. seventeen
candles. one rusting cross
on my neck. one black
rise. twenty-eight points. three-methyl-
oxymorphone kisses on my red bag. one swastika
misshapen. th hound
is awake
one more glass
down another night. and th wall, do
not forget th [ black blanket ] wall
13 December 2007
his balls
13 September 2007
convo w-GP circa 2007 fireside [sweetwater]
19 August 2007
10 August 2007
06 August 2007
05 August 2007
every day / any more
th way I see it I got three choices
th way I see it I got three choices
/ or I cld jump out
my first story
window -- or
lack
there
of
it
04 August 2007
114
shot is I will
sleep until september. I need a change
of scenery. high school was not
as easy as it sounds. one breath after another after
listening to enough graham parsons to kill a lover. guido
addd a little piece of history & we ate it w-
creme fraiche & chives. garden fresh stella -- "go there & have a pint
for me."
I can’t write fighting
these tomatos...
regrets? yea -- every single
day ( I’m not even
that sex-crazed -- th giver, th
clash [long distance callers make
long distance calls] are everything as usual
for th first time you feel again. I leave early b-c
I don’t want to be left. fighting one
on one ( wrap my arms around
her neck her neck -- th’arms I use I use to cut meat
& open wine. a place open until 3 a.m.
where I think I am laughing
blue
M-K Artist Camp
The camp, now in its second year, takes 12 artists from across Canada and for one week sets them in the heart of the M-K where they travel by horse, cook over an open fire and let loose their creative minds.
Organizer and poet Donna Kane said that given the rich art and cultural importance of the M-K to First Nations it was a natural combination.
“Last year we were unable to get any First Nations artists in time, so this year we are really excited about it,” she said, as vehicles were packed before the group set off to Muncho Lake, where they’ll fly in by floatplane.
The five First Nations participants include Brian Jungen, the internationally acclaimed artist who has Dunne-za roots in the region and now resides in Vancouver.
“Brian is from our community and he’s always had that spirit of environmental issues and recycling ideas…I think it’ll be very interesting to see what he creates because his art is on an international level,” said Gary Oker, who is also on the journey.
Jungen, who went to camp a day early, is perhaps best known for the “Prototypes of New Understanding” series, in which he reworks objects into art form – such as aboriginal masks assembled from Nike Air Jordan shoes.
While representing nature through art is a central part of the experience, Oker also wants to develop the idea of environmental awareness in his work.
“How do we, as artists, create environmental awareness using art instead of preaching to people about it? I have this idea about the science of indigenous knowledge…and that’s what I’m formulating right now,” he said.
Saskatoon poet Laura Edna Lacey said she’s not sure what she’ll be holding after a week in the wilderness, but she’s looking forward to connecting with other artists and sharing the experience.
“I’m not sure how busy and active we’ll be and how much time we’ll have to sit around and write. I may come out with a pile of rough notes, or I may come out with a pile of ideas,” she said.
Photographer Wayne Sawchuk is co-organizing the camp and was in a week early to get packhorses ready and set up the camp, which is on the shores of Mayfield Lake.
The work produced from the camp will go into an art show that will travel the region next spring.
28 July 2007
borderside (from th lakeside sessions)
wood and margaritas says here
are only cool kids. a Jackson
Triggs kind of evening says
solo style / rock on
just abt to fire up october road. had a wonderful…
wood says it cld be even better. I’ve also been in
to th wine. in th dead of night, solo style says
to fall asleep w-perfect. ha ha…
to be honest says I feel so confused. th word is screaming –
sounds amazing, says, I was drinking yellowtail tonight. that’s
for you, that dream
says ( shiraz or merlot or buffalos ) why is
british columbia so fucking big
electro-dream
(or, th spaces b-w her toes are like freeways)
if you love me
if you leave me I hope you live forever then
or maybe me drink talk a little so
less afraid right now. they
are with their father
8
in th garden of myself
was an assault
th suspects peeld back my skin
and I flew
I maybe. light bones
I am a strong girl
I am a strong girl
I am a strong girl
I am a strong girl
I am a strong girl
I am a strong girl
8
you are seeing things (contact
and you say th things
you see
are free
?
a skinhead bathroom corpse
a green apple soakd in bleach
doth
oth
h
*cough – jesus christ, billy, we smoke
8 hah, we make music videos
w-our teeth
see you later
sleeping paradox (vid eados / drrty
my last chance was
a teenage trampoline orgy
my first sexual experience was
weird
I am a scared animal
I am a scared animal
I am a scared animal
I am a scared animal
8
maybe did you see
this morning
a red mothe dream
a blue berry nightmare
wake up
this morning in bondage
and taste th’oh yeah of last night
you wrote that drunk
so I met th love
8
so I work eight hours a day
what
th
fuck
do I do
now
huh
?
24 July 2007
I was going nowhere when
to th cop that pulld me over
on my regrets. “we’re no one w-o some
one, he said, th memories in my head
straight lines and a new moon. he gave me a ticket for going
so slow
devil beside me on th’alaska highway
when I’ve been drinking. th lake
lines are quiet and I’ll just
keep
to meet you
so far I’ve had more than enough time to kill,
confess, or in th city lights
change. but how can we
forget what I did last weekend. just b-c
some people can start over again --
get tickets and pay them. or do th time
closer to you
*
you dont have to understand me -- just hear me out
give me a ticket and move on
21 July 2007
17 July 2007
la carovana della violenza [outake no. 27]
you said you want me to be more like stalin
and push yr hunger around a bit
pound you w-my hammer eyes
all into th night
and easy comes,
easy goes, easy flashes me
her pussy from beneath
a white bathrobe
and locks th bathroom door
leaves me in there w-nothing
but th smell her shaving cream
see what mascara looks like on me)
it's you mirror you and me
*
maybe ill sleep on th couch
on th fence
so what kind of person am-i
w-th nut suckd right out of me
words worth punches wheat blonde ale
it's you mirror you and me
"come in me / im scared
11 July 2007
08 July 2007
05 July 2007
who cannot be named under th young offenders act
via video from th youth correctional centre
in prince george. you sat there
in a small grey room while th crown
went over th details of a fight
in th parking lot of th local mall
where you beat th shit outta some girl
who pressd charges, and th judge
sentenced you to time served
(which turnd out to be more than you woulda gotten anyways)
and you smiled w-blonde hair covering
your eyes. and th warden said he’d leave you
at th gates
I knew those gates out in th woods. and you lookd away
from th camera like th ride was over
th judge askd if you had someone to pick you up
b/c a young girl on th side of a highway and then
alone at a greyhound station
is never a good idea, but th camera had turnd off
so I left court and got in my truck w-o thinking
because I could be there in five hours
because somehow we were in th same place and
I told myself it could work if we just
went from there
you have no criminal record and don’t worry
I’m on my way. when everyone has gone home
and th haircuts are expensive, I’m leaving town
and heading west. red eyes on a smoggy morning
6
if she doesn’t change,
how am I going to explain th shotgun
wedding. fully loadd and on a faint trail
along th banks of th nechako. and she’s got a black
bear in her mouth, and my heart is attachd to a human
skeleton
at a point, we could just never meet and thereby be real --
or else, you could get into my truck...
but how many people that pass you by on th highway
won't have that same thought before I get there
03 July 2007
02 July 2007
deer eyes
my friend and I
in th back of a silver minivan
on th way to edmonton
lying w-my friend, no purpose, gazing
out th window, somewhere around jasper
wondering man those mountains, but
when I hear my name I don't really
seem to care
turn it up, he says
effect and cause
effect and cause
and in typical road trip fashion
we talk about how far we've come
since prince george, in tits and pints
but not twenty-dollar bills,
kilometres or tears
in th mountain pass
I pay cover to think for a moment
back to some of those scenes. limes
and eyes
th'animals are all roadside. many deer
are dead, and no one is clearing th
bodies. we are relaxd in th back of
th silver minivan
we are relaxd like th'eyes that bulge out
of the deerheads at th yellowhead
and th trucks. and th night
is a red chill, my friend,
sips harp regret, for us,
th night is something
to hold on to from behind
25 June 2007
24 June 2007
la carovana della violenza [outake no. 26]
might th wrong time
be in
these days?
mid-twenties speakeasies
are th rage
w-all my friends
black eyes red bread
hammer bisexual martinis
he hammerd wooden nails
into my dreamfloor, come over draped in bloom
so we have sickles in our eyes so what
a windmill
a good funeral dance
we only lastd 35 hours dead
you are birds
people don’t need love
they need success of one form or another
it can be love
but it doesn’t have to be
-bukowski
says, an appearance
you are birds
two burgers
& two cold beers
two burgers & two cold beers, says,
beside you -- goodnight -- little world war two
oh, is that what you are calling her
iv been called worse)
th german version
on special occasions, or in th bush
on sunday. you got a little fresh in th dark. yes,
everything is so predictable, yes,
everything -- two burgers, two cold beers & world war two
on special occasions
23 June 2007
22 June 2007
work, drink, rinse, repeat
faint smell of booze on my body. th northern
sun that rises at four in June. th black candle against
th blinds of everyone
I thought of love. b/c I was new
& it was nothing to do w hot water or becoming
clean, but th black candle & th fact it was bright
again before I’d go to sleep. in my pockets
$$$ from th men & women
to hear th twist of a bottle or another hitting another
for I was born yesterday & what th devil holds
at home alone for th waitresses
who were ready
for someone to happen. our black clothes were uniforms
& we laughd at nothing or summer rains
in anticipation of hard drinks on th soft red chairs
when th doors were lockd
seeing how things were hard before, like th top of th bar
was th top of th world
for dancing, & knowing little of th future I wld fall asleep.
in & out of th shower, I wld count my $$ & laugh
& pull th blinds
20 June 2007
18 June 2007
City fear to humour & we laugh along
Her second video featured a fairy nymph (an actor reminiscent of a SCTV extra) that dances through hyper-morphed camera tricks against a backdrop of Muskwa scenes. Jerky movements & scared facial expressions relay the inner-turmoil the actor faces in nature.
16 June 2007
14 June 2007
12 June 2007
my chemikiller pt 6
breathe in th cedars & th’ocean blood
flowing over th stones of black
rock tee’s
some of this magic is centuries old
or only just sixteen
december’s cuts are finally healing
in this field
there is no place to disappear. bedroom anger shows
on webcams, shooting yourself
through a shower curtain
black gown rain. beneath th dark flower
speakers to heaven. believe th grass stains &
in th warm beer. th screaming sins
after th show it is dark & we follow
lit cigarettes across soccer fields
to th bus stop
taste th dye in a stranger’s hair
follow th virgin’s tracks across th stadium
see th killer in a blue sweater
drag
mosh. old & young body frustrations
11 June 2007
09 June 2007
th baby open
I’m nos ture how th topic
got on me & a baby
But this snake abt four-months pregnant
came in in her underwear &
startd to try to sell me her unborn
for $6,000 obo
Not even knowing th going rate
I looked back & forth from my beer
to her bottle of water & to her
smooth white – thinking where did this
come from – round stomach & told her straight up
I had no need for her offer
But addd that I wld like to be inside her
instead
for th modest price of nothing
towards my dream of sleeping
w/a knockd-up snake
jays lost
I tryd watching another baseball game
but there was really nothing poetic
abt it
my chemikiller pt 5
all th cracks in bc
led here tonight
nowhere. thunderbird,
this is th weather of our
anger. w/o skin &
it’s rolld out in ceremony
somewhere, back in th womb
now they have turnd on th sirens
for us
children unleashd
in saint anger
in mother’s red dress
in father’s old politics. listen,
justice is done
at th door of colours – come down
w/th stadium killer
eyes as wide
as white holes. this howl we love
when we are alone
& in pillows hear footsteps
howl silently
one at a time
thousands of voices ( screaming
stop
07 June 2007
my chemikiller pt 4
it’s as easy to imagine that we are th shadows of society
that form in th pain of
I want to go out tonight alone. miserable
fists, widow kiss, rise against, th stars turnd away
to look at you. strangers are so white & beautiful ISM
phantoms
phields
I want to go out tonight alone on th
to look at you
in mascara rain, so depressd & so ded
following you in suburbia. did I ever tell you
I feel
you
never let th welcome in. torn fashion face,
wet from rain
give me th strength to walk th stairs
to th children we’ll not have tonight never coming
coming home never coming home never coming home never ISM
home never coming home never coming home never coming ISM
never coming home never coming home never coming home ISM
coming home never coming home never coming home never ISM
why cant I scream
05 June 2007
my chemikiller pt 3
why shld I care
miss black fingers
miss black hair
miss wasting away. gone
blue for sky. waiting
for something to come
absorb th rain
~
th hearts to be sacrificed again
th’endless lies
th corporate fuckers
th median rage
th media minds
th strange bedrooms. th shots. th window escapes. th’aqua blue
lip rings. th vancouver eye
liners. th night traffic
th’endless shots / th pain. th singer
my chemikiller pt 2
Luz, you obey th dark cries. like war comes
to a quiet village. tanks
through a forest & upon th house
that has been there
Forever. at its feet, th body of th beast
is long &
it climbs into yr bedroom, up th spine &
to th heart
What yr body is worth. you crawl on th wet
grass while
singers fight. hold you to reach towards
a hospital stay
th punk prostitutes
th pain
04 June 2007
30 May 2007
written + photos by Hardy Friedrich
from Alaska Highway Daily News - 31 May 07
For the first time in 30 years, wildlife rehabilitator Leona Green crossed the yard to feed her bear cubs to find one dead.
“This is grim,” she said, as she took the cub in her tough, wrinkled hands and placed its body on the wooden roof of the pen.
In a dark corner inside the pen, the female cub’s brother huddled in a corner. The two orphaned bears, found in Montney and brought to her over the weekend by a conservation officer, were her first two cubs of the summer.
Green said she knows better than to get attached to the bears, but her disappointment is clear. Having rehabilitated over 100 cubs over the years, including six grizzlies, she’s never had one die.
At six that morning she brought breakfast and they both ate. They weren’t the sickliest cubs she’s ever received, but they were starved and had little energy.
“Most of them come in real thin, but I’ve never lost one,” Green said, back out in the yard of her farm near Dawson Creek as she shielded the Wednesday morning sun from her eyes.
“I’ll put the body in a bag and freeze it so (the Ministry of Environment) can determine the cause of death.”
The 70-year-old Green is one of only four people in the province qualified to rehabilitate bears. Although she has no formal training, she learned how to care for animals from her veterinarian father.
One day 30 years ago, after moving to the Peace region from Saskatchewan, a conservation officer brought her an injured owl.
“He liked the way I handled my animals so he brought me an owl and suggested I look after it. Then he brought me something else, and something else, and finally he said I’d make a good wildlife rehabilitator so he got me a permit and that was that.”
Over the years, Green has taken in deer, moose, birds, coyotes and bears. Moose are the most difficult to rehabilitate, she said, but the bears are pretty easy.
“Bears, they’ll eat anything and they are absolutely wonderful to raise,” she said, adding they get a varied diet of meat, fish, fruits, vegetables and vitamins, and often are released back into the wild at 18-months-old larger and stronger than their counterparts due to the steady diet.
But bears are also easily habituated, so she gives them space – only entering the pen to feed them and clean up. In the winter they hibernate in barrels on the edge of her yard.
“And not one of my bears has ever came back as a nuisance bear after its release,” Green said proudly.
The cause of the cub’s death remains a mystery for the moment. But Green speculated that the cubs could have gotten into something toxic before they were found.
“With all the resource extraction that’s going on out there you never know what they could get into – they will drink anything, like antifreeze or even out of sumps.”
The volunteer rehabilitator will likely see more bears this summer. The most she’s ever had at once was seven, and there was only one year she didn’t receive any.
Much of the food Green uses is donated, and she is always accepting alfalfa hay and meat (wild or beef).
28 May 2007
thanks for stopping by
dry as a another sunset
still from when you were here
walking around at night while I sleep
it sings a song of antibiotics
& lounges around in a sexless fashion
When I can no longer feel regret
for th lime that was cut for you
sacrificed for your cancerous smile
that eats at love like a broken record
or th biography of a nervous breakdown
Th glass I cannot bring myself to
throw in the sink, which
stares out th window day after day,
even when th flowers are shouting for broken glass
& th couch has reedemd yr poetry
27 May 2007
my chemikiller pt 1 [th virgin festival 07]
punk prostitutes hate
punk prostitutes hate
punk prostitutes hate
outside bedrooms on simply hate
grass we thrash th stadium night sky
to songs for our deaths
somewhere is empty tonight. hearts &
oxygen risk. th strum, screaming remains
rain spotlight falling chemicals & mascara streaks
white dreams. black bras under drenchd white tshirts. need
something to do other than run away
to th beaten floor
of summer tongues. fuck
it’s all we have --
so welcome to th beaten floor of summer tongues. of
right & wrong growing
up. december’s cuts are finally healing. this summer
throws. there comes a time in everyone’s body
for an aggressive dance
after th fight
it was kinda romantic how we were
outside th door
in the dark
& you were warning me
press release
time is stupid!
thank god and for more
information contact:
hardy f
communications officer
Ministry of Time
250-good-night
23 May 2007
21 May 2007
poetry day - dawson creek - 16 may 07
Throughout the afternoon, students, the media and Frontenac House authors Dymphny Dronyk and Alexis Kienlen shared work.
The event peaked with a reading by acclaimed Canadian poets Patrick Lane and Lorna Crozier.
The day ended in pints at the rural Rolla Pub, and ended under a black prairie sky laughing.
Those are some details, visit www.donnakane.com for more.
*
good work
th way Patrick Lane came to th'old grain elevator
& workd his poems through wind & muscled
those words over hard work. his tongue shaped
but from his stomach still th push of meaning by
deep hits of rhythm. it was then clear that his poems
are not done until he reads them to you.
& in th'art gallery th walkway that climbd round
& behind the glass high school students who
cld not get a seat sat on th floor beneath th bright
paintings, lined up around th'edge like sunglasses
in a gas station listening.
& Lane was reading breaths full of Peace honey
& rusty nails & memories. working w/water
beside him he read from Go Leaving Strange --
"Everyone is quiet / in the stone of thier lives."
(from Match Stick); "His was a long story that came
slowly out of silence / and told without his
eyes looking at me, but staring instead / out
the window at the stubborn apples ripening,
a pale brush of fire / flaring under the hard green."
(from The War); "I learned
when I was young to leave things wrong."
(from Bent).
How he worked on his poems as he read
in th grain elevetor that night was as good
to hear as a man waking up at dawn to go
to work.
*
from the May 18 edition of the Alaska Highway Daily News
by Hardy Friedrich
The hardened media of the Peace revealed a softer side in Dawson Creek on Wednesday – instead of barking questions, we let slip poems.
In the grain-elevator-turned-art-gallery, the Media Poetry Slam brought together 17 unsuspecting poets and admirers of the craft in a day devoted to poetry.
Some read writing of our own, including myself and CJDC’s April Parker. Others brought a favorite piece to the podium (CKNL’s Ogho Ikhalo read Maya Angelou), while Peace FM’s Hugh Headley rapped the lyrics to Kool Moe Dee’s “Go See The Doctor.”
It was interesting to see that people who spend much of their lives in front of cameras, on-air, and in interviews were so nervous when it came time to share something other than the news.
Not everyone was shy – the booming Grizz Michaels, for instance – but there was a fair amount of trembling white pages, soft unsure voices and “I can’t believe how nervous I was” comments afterwards.
For it is, most often, easier to talk and write about other people and events than it is to reveal something personal in front of an audience.
We do it every day – get in people’s faces, get the story, block sentiment to stay impartial – while from everyone else we expect emotions and pry into personal lives.
So the tables were turned on Wednesday, and it was refreshing to see and feel. Humans being human, sifting through the hypertext, reading poems and songs that have a personal significance. It can be a vulnerable feeling to be up there alone at the edge of a risk, like a skydiver about to jump out of a plane.
But, like the skydiver, who has hopefully landed safely on the ground by now, a sense of relief and exhilaration rushes forth.
Having purged emotions and shared a laugh, the readers emerged from the art gallery and into a prairie wind lighter – smiling – and in most cases went back to the daily grind.
One of the featured poets of the day, Governor General Award winner Patrick Lane, told me after his evening reading that poets and journalists share much in common.
They both tell a story; they both sift through the details of daily life to create something for other people to experience. They take the facts and have the power to choose what other people read.
So, as unlikely as Poetry Day organizer Donna Kane’s idea seemed at first, it was a successful experiment that garnered many compliments afterwards. Perhaps every profession should have a Poetry Day, from the oilpatch to the post office. Even Dawson Creek mayor Calvin Kruk joined in later that evening with an uplifting Dr. Seuss poem – “Green Eggs and Ham.”
The events of Poetry Day – which included everyone from high school students to media to two of Canada’s most acclaimed poets Lane and Lorna Crozier – wrapped tightly around an art that is often overlooked. But its power could be felt through the Peace on Wednesday.
17 May 2007
th day after last night
in a sentence
& publishd it too
th community. I thot
if I kept talking dirty to her
online b/c it seemd like that's what
she wantd -- my dirty mouth
sang country
as I drove down th'alaska highway
really fast
I dipd my feet in a canola field afternoon
& talkd to a big farmer
& thot abt her a lot more
16 May 2007
th brazilian wives club
of th poor part of town. favela gun
fights. but when you walk, hand-in-hand
in northern BC in th summer, down suburbia
lane, red dress licking th'air. & yr cousin
th drug mule &
sister th prostitute. in brazil
to save someone. a white man for change
how to save them. every one. or perhaps just
beautiful, on a beach, favela rising, a lonely beach &
on vacation
13 May 2007
cool, neglect
another blog. cool -- at th level of th system again. writing until I reach that interactive. through my fingers. stare into space. summer love
“ecomium” is kind of like standing on a riverbank, wondering. it’s practically. it’s like when
all this was inventd how we stopd talking
abt things & things went
inward. like standing on th’edge, inward
*
remember how you felt
when you said youd b there
but you didnt go. well,
really,
it was me that didnt go. I didnt go
for everyone. I was sitting in a bar. I stayd home to drink
& write. I was in
th backcountry. crouchd on a gravel bar swatting
moskeetos. in th’arms of a stripper. thinking
how designs. I spy
thinking abt media, but not of media. flashes. thinking
abt nature but not for nature
[ systems
are okay from behind. that is how a system feels
best
*
it is like cooley said
you dont have to raise your voice in print culture
so let us b quiet on our blogs. let us not
rattle th system. this is summer love. I like th shape of silence
itself. a woman sleeping on a binary
code. covering th main idea