swirling assessments
“The proponent of a reviewable project for which an environmental assessment certificate is required under section 10 (1) (c) may apply for an environmental assessment certificate by applying in writing to the executive director and paying the prescribed fee, if any, in the prescribed manner.” --ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT ACT, CHAPTER 43
1.
mobility,
like a drum
beat
or open source water
(skin
stunned into being)
cyclical,
transformative, achingly
interactive:
all difficult, but not
all
outcomes, all sexual relations,
are
a reflexive gaze, bobbing, sunning
on
the surface and heavy oxygenated air (book
desire
extraneous, left on shore) in waves
moving
like nudity, supple and historical
2.
what
is necessary? an igneous
and
groundwater core
(ethics?)
where you live in orgasms
and
its disconnect from consumption,
where
you are, shuddering in syntax
but
all along, the thin-limbed surveyor was
working
for the [blank] company, rigging the
organism
numbers to match the needs of an
offshore
bank account, taking pictures for his website,
his
own frail desires in tupperware in his backpack
3.
mobility,
like a crowd-sourced fund to
defend
a threatened headwater valley
but
the one that over and over falls back
from
the pepper spray and blog posts
to
where you are huddling in the doctor’s office for more
anti-depressants,
cheaper than charity
and
surveillance ramps up to your
front
step, a letter, a photo thrown
from
a file slapped on your kitchen
counter
and you are named necessary
4.
the
government approved the project despite
the
assessment, concluding that the
nation’s
greater good was—being served—just
once—I
would like to feel a sense of commune (a body
held)—an
idea worked into the topsoil evenly
for
the good (erotic?) of two generations from now
and
mycelium networks pumping from one
tree
to another and us webbed into the flux
like
an informed citizen and the arousal
of
knowing it all comes together
5.
then
the bipolar media cyclops romps into view
and
across platforms performs a montage
bitmap
of the rhetorics of the day—a dystopia
sopped
up with climate-controlled vehicles, rape fantasies,
and
brand-name sandals on unnamed beaches
mobilized,
the nation of the imagination gathers from the forest
floor
false solomon’s seal shoots and morels in May—
the
idea of commerce is a sediment in the wooded
gully
and the arc of sun warming the ground
is
the sum of relations (we embrace in between
bouts
of anxiety) and a human
body, safe in the arms of how
Lheidli
accumulations of gravel, service industry workers, disposable income, and traversing the side of the hill sand as it slides. i don’t want to be in love with this place—it asks too much. a beer can thrown from a crew cab lands cradled in a saskatoon bush bursting with juice because of the recent sun and heat. and because it can. moss squelches against your shoe and you wonder why you’ve wandered into this ditch, dew-wet, chip bags and cigarette package cellophane flowers, where the road edge crumbles, where you begin. i don’t want to come back but the sun is descending and the mosquitos will come out. vehicles crash past—too many, too fast this machine is overheating, its gears screeching, its oversized stores in foreclosure, 50% off everything. no-see-ums in your waist band. streaks of airplane trail overhead. gradations of reclamation as weeds repopulate the ditch. a toad decides not to move as i trudge by. new developments down the road have no yard—the complete erasure complete. but here—roadside strawberries, small and bang on. one two three each a rung of forgiveness, an embrace of mercy. standing still, taking this day and its light playing over the river valley, balsam breath, and you sink a little further into the soil.
bargain bin
‘taking what is given’
hurting aside
struck by
futility, the poem
as it is, in a pile of other poems
what was there
dug up, dispersed
the poem or poems
or you, remaindered
the surplus of culture
is not waste by
lack of comprehension
but spite
nothing memorable, nothing remarkable
metaproletariat
like a stolen word over beer
the cashier rings
it through you
hold it out
you take it
like a northerner
the legend of ken
if
that is his name, walking away
from
the main, from the culture of knowledge
and
response, if that is his body there
leaning
into the currents just this much, just
enough
to step ahead of the force, talking
to
the steelhead, making language old again;
if
those are his words flowing around
each
other and making the animals tracks and fish
paths
in the development slough;
if
that is Ken then I am his friend,
following
his rhythms of letting go,
of
leaving behind the poet voice, of foregoing
the
kill shot, of side-stepping the place affiliations
that
erase, that cede, that road over something other;
if
that is Ken then let this be the offering,
the
sharing over a hearth, the saying of the names.
Stumblers Like Ourselves
Perhaps
the harshest fact is, only lovers--
And
once in a while two with the grace of lovers--
Unlearn
that clumsiness of rare intrusion
And
let each other freely come and go.
–Adrienne Rich
a train crossing signal and the sign
saying 'look both ways' and we do,
beget a sliding serial monogamy
your hand waves the air beside you
to see if the other is safe, still existing
in the face of every barbaric screech of gears
hovering over the other in beds
we haven’t yet grown accustomed to
not knowing what is comfortable or who
you
are
a freedom that is not afforded time—
I am with you and forget everything else
and the train rounds the bend
and your hand is somewhere
