A bucketful of Thursdays

A bucketful of Thursdays
The crow
Pedantic ever
Quote a bit of Poe
-touché eh?-
I nodded as expected
Smell the salt in air
The future is our oyster
-staw hat-
Sinister shadow
The barker’s call harsh
Sharp seagull symphony
Underscores drama
Summer love must end
Dusty toes
Must gently cleanse
To curse the foot with shoe

Pehiw W2022

Gentrified savage

Gentrified savage*
Hunt ma cedar
In rental hedges
Avoid nuns
Sidestep
Suspect
(got a fascist overrun)
Dodge
Colonial structures
Adrift…
Why you gotta be ‘like that’

Ded queen birthday

You really don’t know me
Not cause I secret me
Maybe cause
You don’t like that shadow
Or that you cannot see
Your own eyes
Blinded
When you never tried to see

Unknowable
Gotta leave that closet
The door only fabric
To whisper past
Monster of illusion
To enter the garden of wonders

NanaBjörn
P2022
*A “Yard Acts” lyric

Doorways full of Frieda Kahlo’s

Extravagant waterfalls
Doorways full of Frieda Kahlo’s
Swiss clock logic
“they put what?where?”
Arrange your story
Make sense
Tongue reads room
Ears insist
Banquet is down
The brawls begin.

Maybe sexy unicorn lady change mood?

“If I drink from your skull
We’ll know what way
This has all gone.”

I swing close
Then far
Repeat
Repeat
The poor girl – she’s lost all her ribbons
Gone bare
Even in winter
No fair going fellow
Gifts silk to hide shame
-his-
She don’t give a fuck
She’s got doorways full.

Nanabush P2022

Shed skin and shame

I saw a fox
4am
I saw that profile
The speed
Cross concrete
Predators to flee?
A meal for hungry young?
“I must at desk by 7
But till then I’m game.”

Fox slows and I hasten
Shed skin and shame
We will run
Until moon begins her symphony

Night plants
Enraptured
Unroot to dance
Petals perform
Interlocking stories
Mathematical ecstasy
This must be how
They told stories
Eyes/ears/heart
Can’t meet
Eye to eye {respect}

I married Hydrangea
Honeymooned
In broken dawn

I alice in wonderland work
Twists
Turns
New made words
Cause tongue
Aint meant to say
Every story
Not all love
Needs a lot of words

Pehiw W2022

Soul soil stories

Narrative
Zero
To
Hero
We favorite some
Short hand
To success
Who judges your day?
I gotta be…
But then
That story motivates
Even if that language
Pictures
So pale
So refined
A sugar
That chases high
Only one way
Only one minute
But your soul soil stories*
Written by 8,000 fingers
Ever in motion
Invented new dimensions
These are your birthright
These are the line of teachers
Unbroken
These stories
Family
Connection to all

Pehiw W 2022

*Those deep stories like "A Korean Odyssey"

Métis Fear 249

Métis Fear 249: The economic crisis has led sîsîp
(ᓰᓰᑊ duck) trying out some new accessories.

Making Degenerate Art

MacBerger 2018

Should not: exist Part 2

Cause birthdays
always suck
cause "christmas"
excoriates
even away from harm
build your own treasured days
stand with rainbows
embody devils
revive pagan revelries
choose a date
of significant becoming 

Grab a kind soul
dance until sunset
feast
body
soul
mind
emotions
you are monument
to survive

Pehiw W2022

Each day we make history when we wake again.

I tried to tell you
We survive
We walk your streets
No zombie realness
Just medicines
And peoples.

Take your games
Your harms
Your places

That path offers no revelations.

Tonight don’t go alone!

Light you medicines
Set the table
Fill a plate
The best
The first
The sacred
Honor one
Honor all
Those passed over
Those awaiting their return
The infinite in tiny eyes
Say their names
Tell their stories
Capitalism a fad pitched by pastors
To destroy our circles
To make us “I”

Let’s reject their pronouns
Sit with Elders

Refresh our souls
Thank them
For keeping “we” alive
Remember our artists
Our fallen
Each day
We make history when we wake again.

Pehiw – Wandering 2022

Bear Medicine: a strategy of hope

I searched strategy
Offered Semah
Expected community
Like to like
A moment shared
As journeys intersect
I felt pupil
Ever as stooooooooopid
As school engraved
I felt scarcity
Ever a consumer
Or worthless
I felt separate
Ever alone
Not perfect
I felt fear
Ever broken

I searched strategy
[lost sight of Bear]
Bush thick
But after days
Found roots
Bear medicines

I remembered
Bravery
How we try
Change
Fail
Learn

I remembered
Community
How we support
Care
Share
Build and trust

I remembered ALL
Decolonizing
How we grow
With every person
Every story matters

I remembered seed
We plan
We water
We matter
Even
When others harvest
No I lost in we

I remembered
We ceremony
Different medicines
Circle directions
Many lands
But one in respect

I remembered abundance*
Joyful struggle
Safer places
Gardens to architect
Teachings to come
Hope

Strategy
Elder teachings**
If it feels good
Bares healthy fruit
Grow it
Imperfect?
Time will refine
Scarcity?
Enter the garden of Bear

Work in abundance
Heal in abundance
Feast in abundance
A strategy of hope***

Pehiw – Wandering 2022
*with humble thanks to P and M and K for their thinking on this

The speed of trust

The speed of trust
Just words
Just weather
I can witness
But you are a one
Who is an all
Old school
Grandparents
Or Keynesian ideas
You are a multiplier
A new-old math
Gotta remember
Gotta breathe
Me is a variable
But you+you+you
Well that’s exactly what this place needs

Pehiw W2022 

*To G

Better man

Those words
They got mean letters
I got scars
Hot metal
Burns flesh
“there’s a story there”
Hidden
Under pain
Power suit
Eyes down
I sees your soles*/souls
It was that boardroom
Where I learnt
Strategy
Another use for body
Another math to weave
You taught me
To be a better man

Pehiw W2022

*To Bill my Chief at the Department of Finance

Let’s bury “enough”

Métis enough?
Pass muster
Red River
Rebellions
Warriors
Check

Métis enough?
No community
No fiddles
No stories
No lands
Check

Métis enough?
Never labelled
But
Time on land
Water beast
Ancestors hope
Check

Métis enough?
A kaleidoscope of teachings
My territory
River to parliament
Bureaucracy to home
Check

Métis enough?
Tattoo a lie
Story by broken child
Force fed shame
Still afraid of braids
Check

Métis enough?
Long afraid to claim*
No languages
No medicines
No skirts sewn by aunties
Check

Métis enough?
When I quiet
When I brave
When I hope
I hear the ancestors
I quicken - their blood shows
I gather harvests of their hope
And I/We are enough
Let’s bury enough
To seed tomorrows of abundance

Pehiw – Wandering 2022
*Kim Anderson see "Life Stages and Native Women: Memory Teachings and Story Medicine"

One day They’ll drink from our bones

One day
They’ll drink from our bones
Singing songs
Not sold on phones
Some of those new ones
Forged in the hardest of times
We wrote with bloodied hands
Forged in the eyes
Stories
Memories
Of hard things done daily.
Maybe some lies
Like democracy
And future
Shouldn’t be stolen so easy
I never thought to neighbor
As police left us afraid
Night after night
Didn’t need to know
Three is the answer
To how many hate crimes
Too much for week
No managers handbook
For breaks in the soul
You left us
Servants of the civil
Left us as garbage
No sorry
No care
While ours
Stood by
Could not be trusted
Because the rot went too deep
In dysfunctional places that hurt
Degrees and degrees of harm
Can I be part of that?
Can I write those songs
Or is that rot too deep?
Another goodbye?
I am so tired –
When will this match be list?
New songs
Should be put before open flame.

NanaBjörn Preparing 2022

“Should not exist”: Part 1

Should not exist.
Saved
Then damned by sex.
Should not exist
Too much
Enraptured by logic
Should not exist.
Broken memory
Unable to forget
Should not exist
“Just move on”
"just smile”
Should not exist.

Platonic form adored

Reality - lock her up

Should not exist.
Real person
Not dolly
Take each “should not exist”
Give hard Paddington stare
Cause your exist

Is somebody else's hope
Is a space for future

is warrior

Should not exist.

Grew in cracks
Survived fires
Always riser
No matter
How harsh the blow
Exist
Forgive
Currencies of shame
That bought you one more night
Forgive
The parts of you
Made tough to survive
Forgive
The self you don’t know
Too busy with battle
To make a home

Pehiw W2022

You remember

You remember
So close to spirit
When I said trust
Your eyes turned to mother
Measured still in months
You know this word
In every language
I make a promise
I will nurture good ones
Tell them all your plans
Then the grandmothers will gather
To speak of things to come
We’ll weave this all together
Send crow to let all know
To ready now for futures
We’ll build as we destroy
What once was flooring
Adorns our wrists and thighs
The very thing beneath us
With sun reveals the lies

Pehiw W2022

On the altar of being

I held a baby
Told him truths
Listened for his
I birthed
A number of new ways
To let each letter shine
I looked through books
To find the answer
I know and Elder told me
But I was not “productive”
Did not excite the markets
No fortunes won
Or lost
No coin joined us
Only
Shared recognition
That abundance
Should be real
And
Productivity laid to rest
On the altar of being

Pehiw W2022

Around you

It is done
I have made seen
That which is needed.
I have examined the hard
I have seen truths
A missing line
Gifted by kin
When I listened
Truth so clear
So simple.
Around you
I turned off
Around you
No room for me.
It is done.

Nanabush W2022

Shame that is not yours to carry

Almost a relief
To see the lies
Surface
I AM NOT CRAZY
“truth”
Lost in misery
Long before me

The other loves were real
I say now
I know you tired
I accept all love

Each ice cream bar
I will eat for you

We will celebrate
Your birthday for 10 years
For everyone
Locked away

“All the ceremony I wasted”

Knowing not
Each dish
t-shirt
repair

no shame!
we learn
see more
medicine
ceremony.

Each morn
I medicine
The smell
Embedded in cloth
Imbues each key stroke

I learn my new lands
Body
Streets
Soul

What will I become?

It will be good!

So ceremony
Breathe
Sit
That shame is not yours to carry

Pehiw W 2022

L E A D E R S H I P

They drugged us from the start
I bought it full
The heady expectation
We 3 entered
Hallowed halls
An Indian in a Cabinet

- I jest –

We sat behind
The Minister
Of the Affairs of Indians
He offers candy
That we are not supposed to eat
A gesture full of kindness?
A trap?
A joke?
A lie?

I take one piece
But he exhorts us
“Take at least one more”

I sit behind the man I come to support
I have the “Indian file”
They give it to us kids
We too fooled to see it
A half millennia of loss
Much to fit on one tight page

You taught me how to write
Like each word cost us money
Buy no more than you need.
History heavy body*
Your “first”
made space for others

Some I met
Who told their stories
I carry in my bundle
“conspiracy” they cried

Too many Jews
To look at fishes
Too gay
Too Black
Too “other”**

Don’t forget these roots
These battles
And our fallen.

To you Mr Moses
The first P O L I C Y
Indian
I thank your son
Who tells your stories
Those paths
You showed the way

To all you women, other, servants to the civil
Your minds
Your truth
Excised***
We carry you
Return you
To the hallowed halls of men
To the endless hope we carry
Our DNA will tell
We water seeds
And plants and forests
We harvest
What was sown
By those who came before
The very job I hold
-why I never noticed?-
The same!

I found your Photos
The internet my savior
You worked
To build economies
With people
And cooperatives of fish
Machines to ease the load
Roads to build
I see our programs
New words
The hope the same.

Did you feel shame
To get your ticket****
A beggar to the state
Or
Let that go
The work too important
To tell our truths
Though no one listened
Not then
But later on.
I took the day
I needed witness
The watering of your seeds

A century almost gone.
So I could sit that day
Another minister
Another court tell you
We is real peoples
You don’t listen
When our Leaders refuse to give up
Grandma’s
Who refuse to forget
Youth
Who refuse to gentle

Still here!
Don’t know where I fit
But this ballroom feels right
I greet
The sons
Grandsons
Of the men
Who planned for today
The men
Who taught
Children to read
The women who guarded children
The Elders who cherished our ways

What next?
Reconciliation

At the table
That poisoned our kids
That oversaw our harm
The corpse I live off?
That’s not table for the future

Grab bundle
Bring hoodie
Let’s feast
Leave table behind
And invent new ways to nourish.

Pehiw Wandering 2022

*Herb Grey was the first MP of the Jewish faith. 
** For all the other others who lived their truths when the costs were high. Thank you to Joe who shared his experiences as an analyst in the 1960s civil service. 
*** Expulsion of married women, gay purges
**** Jim Brady who had to ask for train fair to attend the Half Breed Commission

A “we” they taught us to forget

I am
Tied to sky stuff
An orgy
Of music
Words
Numbers
Wonders
Supine
A well pat cat
Hardly lift head
Safe.

Is this the opposite of fear?
Of Eichmann?
Of alone?

-I forget-
Binary
A rot I got at church
But not s#@$e right?

Back to the circle builders
Raising impossible stones

Not aliens
But a “we”
They taught us to forget

Pehiw – Wandering 2022