convo w-GP circa 2007 fireside [sweetwater]

you gotta say something to the fucking videocamera!

why don't you introduce that fucking shadow over there

how does that make you feel...

"it's a land of hungry ghosts and evolved spirits"

hungry-hungry-hungry-hungry

hungry

power is alluring to those who (absinth:444)

every day / any more

th way I see it I got three choices
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

114

th lemons that are not for children. my best

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

FORT ST JOHN -- Artists partaking in the Muskwa Kechika (M-K) Artist Camp set off into the wilderness on Friday morning, and this year the journey is marked by a strong First Nations element.
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.

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

second annual Paddle for the Peace

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
?

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

modern day conservation

I went to save th Peace River
w-Starbucks and sparkling
water

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

b antisocial [from "th bp sessions"]

Donna Kane has some interesting new posts on her site, including Barry McKinnon in Whitehorse & the next round of Muskwa Kechika artists. & in case you've been living b/w the scales of a snake, Ken Belford is here.

this weekend I learnd
that sitting around a campfire
gives other people a lot of time
to analyze your life

I can't wait until John gets to the part about mosquitos

[ reading Above the Falls; Kinuseo Falls, campsite 25 ]

who cannot be named under th young offenders act

I fell for you in court when you appeard
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

don't be a doctor !

deer eyes

we are drinking beer
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

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

down here in my creek [th rolla sesh iii]

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

down here in my creek [th rolla sesh ii]

work, drink, rinse, repeat

Th best showers were when I was a bartender, & th
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

down here in my creek [th rolla sesh]

City fear to humour & we laugh along

Take a city artist & stick it in the backcountry for a week to see what comes.

A video screening from last year's Muskwa Kechika Artists Camp at Donna Kane & Wayne Sawchuk's place in Rolla last weekend revealed one possibility.

By floatplane & packhorse, artists Sally McKay & Von Bark were thrust from Toronto's College Street deep into northeast B.C., along with a number of other artists. Not the everyday transition.

But that's one of the hooks of the now annual camp: shocking artists into a foriegn environment & asking them to relate the experience.

& in this case, McKay & Bark could be cast as confused & scared. Humour, often a by-product of fear, was a main theme in the videos; they were more along the lines of B-science fiction movies & children shows than an Audubon documentary.

McKay's first of two short videos was a spoof on grizzly bear enthusiast & all-round nut Timothy Treadwell, who lived among the bears in Alaska's Katmai National Park for 13 summers.

In the style of Treadwell's raw video footage, McKay trekked through downtown Toronto to the visit the grizzlies at the Toronto Zoo. It was darkly humourous when she reached the bears' pen, where they appeared unhealthy & lethargic.

The point was clear. However, despite his death wish, the "Grizzly Man's" strength was his passion, & McKay was ignorant of that fact.

However, the trip through the concrete forest did succeed in disorientating the viewer, who may have expected something more pastoral, which set up the proper reaction for part two.

Many artists-- like her father, poet Don McKay, for instance, who was on the same trip -- try naively to understand nature (even by claiming they are not). They sit on a rock and stare into a creek, waiting for a revelation (which is incidentally pervading them at all times). But McKay's takes a refreshing short-cut.
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.

The nymph strides over lakes & through forests to escape a bear. The backcountry is a dreamland. But it was funny & we laughed.

Now, Bark is not a good singer, nor, apparently, a videographer. He is one of those artists that thrives on nonsense, & therein lies his merit because he makes it watchable.

The first, Blair Witch-ish video has Bark tent-bound & humming a song about having six fingers. Then he rolls over and goes to sleep.

The second video features a backdrop of cardboard mountains, which probably wasn't filmed in the Muskwa, & was soundtracked by another song of random lyrics.

Everyone enjoyed the videos -- mostly through laughter. But the artistic merit became secondary to how the two people from from Toronto dealt, through art, with being trapped in nature for a week.

While the camp produced a multitude of work in different mediums, it can on one level be seen as an experiment on how artists from different areas of the country express their natural, northeast B.C. experience.

Bark's videos seem to have no real point, but at the same time it's better than another poem that wrestles the mystery of nature to exhaustion.

my chemikiller pt 7

[a re-write]

my chemikiller pt 6

we walk around & drink some more
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

th baby open

I was at a party standing in th kitchen &
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

for bowering's sake
I tryd watching another baseball game
but there was really nothing poetic
abt it