1. |
Me
00:20
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I
am a little girl
in a woman suit.
Inside
I play with Barbies
and watch Sharon, Lois and Bram
religiously.
Outside
I am driving at 90 kilometers an hour
on the not-so-freeway of life
trying to keep up
with traffic.
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2. |
A Space to Celebrate
00:47
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Examine each line
as though it is
a fingerprint:
the paintbrush of life
preserving each memory,
carefully folded
into each crevice.
Every time your son laughed,
or the first time your daughter
rode around the block
without training wheels.
All of this is there,
along with the years of toil,
in the form of sweat,
that has stained your skin,
the way that labour
has strained your hands and feet.
You can trace each trajectory
like a rut
in a local’s only back road,
in an out-of-the-way town
that isn’t dear
to everybody,
but sets the rhythm
of a heartbeat for many.
While some would sing the praises
of botox and collagen,
this is my ode to the wrinkle!
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3. |
||||
1.
When you say green university,
is green a euphemism for money?
Is it a metaphor
for the substance
bled
from students
in exchange
for the possibility
of better opportunities
in their future?
I put a quarter
in the ticket dispenser
in the UNBC parking lot
and it reads:
“Fee paid,
pay more,”
as if the machine
speaks
for the whole educational institution.
Our ancestors
lobbied
for free education,
not fee education,
but the system
cannot run as it does
if anyone can become
empowered.
2.
When you say server,
is that a euphemism for serf?
Am I here
to aid the modern CEO vassals
in their quest
to engorge themselves
on oversized portions,
while across the ocean
the peasants
are wasting away,
and I
am struggling to put food
on my own table?
I once asked a ‘gentleman’
if he could please
not
read over my shoulder
while I split up his bill.
He said it was brave
for someone
in my position
to say something like that
to a customer.
Perhaps the reason the USA
is a military nation
is that,
like the Spartans,
the outnumbered CEO’s
fear a slaves revolt.
3.
When you say human,
is that a euphemism for drone?
Do you see cogs and gears
in place of bones and sinew,
reducing the whole to a mere machine
and it’s functions?
I measure my own existence in shifts:
nine-to-five,
five-to-nine,
five-to-five,
nine-to-nine;
the hours don’t matter anymore.
Only the result,
or product, of my labour
is counted.
Maybe someday
Monsanto will create
genetically modified people –
specifically engineered
to clean,
or weld,
or cook –
that expire
if they entertain
a communist or socialist idea.
4.
When you say democracy,
do you mean dictatorship?
Does it matter
which puppet
I choose on election day,
when big business
is pulling all the strings?
I drive past the Wal-Mart in my neighbourhood,
which has become a Wal-Mart Superstore
with giant sliding doors
like a ravenous mouth.
It seems ready now
to devour any
ethical
commercial outlets
that get in the way
of its super expansion.
The lines between government regulation offices
and big business board rooms
blur,
until all the faces
are the same,
so no one can slay
the monster that is Wal-Mart.
5.
When you say capitalism,
is that a euphemism for corruption?
Does ‘free enterprise’
mean you are free
to participate in the enterprise
of concentrating the resources of many
into the hands of a few?
I, too, am sucked,
in spite of myself,
into the conveyer belt world of production and consumption.
To investigate the latest
human rights violation
I, too, google it
on my new IPhone.
CITIBank mortgage lenders
continue to make underhanded foreclosures
that contribute only to their bottom line.
Where will we put our stuff
when they make us all homeless?
Big business
doesn’t care.
It’s about money,
and that is the only bottom line
when you are speaking to a capitalist.
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4. |
Post Election Ponderings
01:20
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Now that niqabs are a non-issue again,
populations and politicians go back to arguing
about economic sustainability
with their heads seemingly stuck
in the tar sands.
Meanwhile the rest of the world
appears to be more concerned with our new leader’s looks
than with his ability to stave off the painful sociecide
put in motion by his predecessor.
Being Canadian
was confusing enough before,
and now we have underpinned every layered label we have
with hypocrisy
and drilled more holes in our own honor
than we have in all of Alberta.
The wheels of industries that embrace biocide for profit still continue to turn,
red and white are still the separated colors of our country’s flag
and everyone still ignores the keystone
laying down a path
that will only lead us deeper
into the slick mess we have made of our environment
and our economy.
We may have put a prettier face on the problem,
but it is far from being resolved;
however, Canadians sit back and smugly celebrate
the seeming success of their strategy
from the serene sidelines
of a battle that is barely the beginning of a war
we will all have to work together to win.
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5. |
Being an Outsider
00:48
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I do not fit in
with the girls who have pink hair
and vogue scarves,
or the boys who wear skate shoes
and sweater vests
with utter confidence.
I don’t have
the artist’s sensibility
to toss around complicated words
like I use them
all the time,
discuss popular underground
writers and avante guarde painters
that you don’t hear about
at the workday water cooler
or the pub on Saturday night.
I am not artistically fashionable.
I am the odd button on an old sweater,
the extra one on the inside,
in case you lose a real button;
and I long to pull a loose thread
in this fabricated atmosphere,
unravel this place until it is nothing
but a pile
of string and useless buttons.
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6. |
There's a Green Crate
00:25
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There's a green crate,
in the smoking area,
oddly mixed
with all the yellow ones.
In a prolific moment
I might say
it's a lot like me,
but it's not
one of those moments.
Right now
it's just a green crate,
and the roar
of passing cars
is just traffic,
not life,
rushing past me
like a flaming locomotive.
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7. |
Bathtub Poetry
00:53
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I am reduced
to writing bathtub poetry;
hoping my leopard print shower curtain
will shock me into inspiration,
but words do not
flow
like the water from my tap;
drawn three times now
to reheat this cauldron
I stew myself in,
hoping
I will eventually
cook
up
something.
I make nothing but white-sauce today:
a solid base
that is wanton
for flavor.
Spanish guitar
emanates from my stereo,
intended to be my muse for the moment,
but it dances away,
too quickly,
the phrases
that try to step stiflingly
out of my head.
Exhausted
I pull the plug on this torture session
in which I’ve boiled my brain
in the vain hope
of producing
one
fluid
ounce
of bathtub poetry.
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8. |
Namaste
00:57
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Lately
I find I need to fill in space.
To stretch my limbs
into the fabric of the universe
and say: “I am here.
Like the first ocean,
I am here.
Surface broken, again and again,
on the bones of ancient rocks and cliffs,
but I
am still here.”
Breathe in, stretch up
just to know
that I am still here;
to know that each illusory moment
is reality;
to know that I see what is missed
amidst the folds of society,
and that when the world particulates
in front of my eyes
I am seeing the truth:
seeing the fundamentals of life;
understanding the individual importance
of each tiny speck,
taking up its own minute space,
and understanding the importance
of just being here.
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9. |
Enantiodromia
01:07
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I often have to think
about how old I am.
It seems
I am trying to forget
how many years
have passed me by,
like signs on a highway
that barely get the time to be read
before headlights
flash
over them
and they are gone.
Is time really relevant
in anymore than a perceptual capacity,
or does it run
like the river behind my house?
In a constant cycle
where motion is the only thing that matters.
Not where you’re going,
or how you get there;
just the simple fact
that you continually moved forward.
Like the river does,
I remain relatively the same, even in motion.
A few of my forehead lines cutting slightly deeper,
in the same way a current cuts a bank,
leaving the marks of moments
where it has passed.
But all of those lines
will eventually be washed away
with the remnants of my body, and with this river,
leaving only the flow of eternal energy,
that even enantiodromia cannot erode.
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10. |
So I Said It
01:47
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I don’t want to alarm,
or cause any harm,
I’m not saying you should be armed,
or move to a farm,
unless that holds charm,
but I have to call attention
to things no one else will mention,
even if it causes contention,
though that’s not my intention.
Truth cannot be confined,
no matter how the system is designed.
We need to use our minds
to find
the rewind
button on this unkind
capitalist program that has made us all blind
to the overload of overcharged input
changing the quality of our output,
making it hard to have a positive outlook,
and leaving us all on the hook
for this collective anxiety
that’s infecting society
in the name of propriety
and notoriety.
Things that are fleeting
that leave us competing,
never completing,
only depleting
never really meeting.
Wisdom is lacking
in the midst of this slacking,
backtracking,
and fracking
that only causes cracking,
factioning
and fracturing,
when we should be enrapturing.
Matter is a loan,
not something we can own.
We all die alone,
so put down your cellphone,
leave your tablet at home,
don’t be a drone.
It’s time to stop chasing,
racing,
erasing
and misplacing.
Forget about hating
and waiting.
Take the time to connect
and reflect
instead of neglecting
the state of the land and the oceans,
or our downward motion,
or our own real emotions,
that are buried in the commotion
of all these options,
that are really illusions.
You know in your heart,
we all did from the start,
what was really right and wrong,
even though we’ve played along
for far too long
in this game
we’re all too afraid to name,
because no one wants to take the blame,
we’re all too ashamed
to admit we picked the wrong seed,
and allowed evil to feed,
so no one can be freed,
and we’re all left to bleed
on this altar of greed
that recedes
our power to fulfill our own common needs.
So I did it,
I said it,
I spelled it out.
Believe it or not we can all do without
electronic overload and materialistic doubt,
so give your head a shake, take a look around,
and see what life is really about.
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11. |
I Live on Bird Quadrant
00:36
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I live on Bird/Quadrant,
but it is not
the intersecting street signs
at the end of my block
that tells me this.
It is the morning’s orchestra;
the notes of mother nature’s tongue
incited
by the fresh rays of sun
that warm a song
out of the feathered philharmonic
of my otherwise quiet
neighborhood.
This is serenity:
this solitary moment
nestled into the frenzy
of trills
that overlap one another,
as crinoline overlaps itself
in the skirt of a ballerina.
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12. |
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I came here to write poetry,
but the paintings are flat,
and the coffee is cold.
Jazz music does not
drip
from the speakers
to flow into waves
of inspiration.
Instead rock music
assaults
my senses
like a bad smell
in a small room,
or too much neon
in one outfit.
Where is the elusive, eclectic coffee bar,
where artists
are more abundant than coffee;
where alternative describes the music
and the atmosphere?
I need a beret.
I need a cigarette,
and a sleek cigarette
holder.
I need a flash of the right color;
a whisper of the right word.
I need a man
with the body of a Greek Adonis
to be my masculine muse,
and by God, I need a moment of inspiration!
I came to write poetry,
but I can see
that is not going to happen
here.
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13. |
The Children's Plot
00:40
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The smaller spacing
between the tiny headstones
leaves much more room
for emotional impact.
The loss of a young one always
leaves a much bigger hole.
Perhaps that is why
Kaslo is a valley.
Too much innocent death
has carved a crater
in those mountain ranges,
one we Kootenay folk carry in our hearts.
We have all
buried too many humble bodies
under tiny headstones
with smaller spacings,
much like these
are laid out here in Prince George:
A decaying garden of life
that lost its bloom
too quickly.
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14. |
In the Mirror
00:26
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In the mirror
is a sullen girl
who has no more answers
than I do,
but I continue to ask her
anyways,
and I wonder
if everyone knows a person
who hides
in their looking glass
without any answers;
someone who used to smile
like she did.
And I wonder
if they wonder,
like I wonder,
if there will ever be another smile
on the girl
in the mirror.
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15. |
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So they’ve decided elephants
are sentient
now;
just elephants…
and dolphins.
Maybe the other animals
are not as silent as they seem.
Maybe only we
are denied the privilege
of hearing the sentiment of their sentient voices
because we cannot seem to clearly understand
the meaning of symbiosis.
We have apparently bridged the gap
between ourselves
and an elephant,
but we cannot close the communication cavern
between ourselves
and the universe as a whole.
We cannot seem to grasp
the simplicity
of interconnectedness;
of how nature and the cosmos use etheric energy
to make an arch between the apertures
in the species and their elements.
We audaciously split atoms
and send satellites soaring into space
without remembering what we should truly explore
before we meddle with the master plan
of a power we do not completely comprehend.
Perhaps the animals do not speak to us,
because they are too busy
honing their hereditary instincts;
internalizing the motion of the sun and the stars;
receiving the messages of their own planet
through its smallest vibrations,
without needing to use a satellite.
22
While we humans can hold our gadgets high,
and cite civilization
as proof of the endlessness of our learnedness,
we have foolishly forgotten
the wisdom of ancient words
adorning one of our oldest oracles:
(‘GNOTHI SEAUTON’)
‘know thyself’.
That is something
an elephant
would never do,
but humans still decide
who is or isn’t sentient.
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16. |
A Telephone Wire
00:30
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The telephone wire
lays limp,
hanging
in one spot
for days.
No need to pick it up,
or move it at all,
if it isn't ringing.
Who would I call anyway?
There's nothing left to say
to anyone;
just recycled stories
that cannot be repeated
with any more detail
than the first time we told them.
Do I really need a phone now?
It's just another line
to dangle off of;
to clutch and wait
for nothing.
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17. |
The Cylon Poem
00:46
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To know the face of God
is to know madness,
said one little God
to another.
But what is God,
really?
Do you find it in the space
between life and death?
Does it all really mean more
because of death,
and that tiny space?
What does it mean to breathe;
to inhale these
ephemeral experiences
that continue to add to one another,
through the process of choice,
until they add up to a life?
What is right and wrong
if everything is determined,
or undetermined,
by simply going right or left?
But is choice an illusion,
one little God spoke softly,
if this has happened before
and it will happen again?
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18. |
Gathering Memories
02:15
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Winter
has not set in yet
but we are preparing anyway;
navigating a mountain road,
in a Jetta with a rickety wooden trailer
hooked to its rear bumper,
in the time honored quest for fire.
Gathering firewood has become our tradition,
born out of your desire to share with me
your love of the forest,
and my desire to avoid doing the dishes.
Even though we are flanked by cliff,
going up on one side
and down on the other side of the car,
the drive is not the most frightening part
of this journey.
We arrive at a suitable clearing,
and you scout for a still standing
dead tree –
never being one to waste
a life –
then the real rush comes.
You tell me to wait by the car,
which is parked
a healthy distance away
from your conquest.
I love the illusion of safety
this distance between myself
and the soon to fall tree creates,
but in the back of my mind
I wonder what an eight year old should do
miles up a logging road
if her father gets injured?
Even if I were to protest,
your mind is made up.
I can see by the set of your jaw,
and the deliberation with which you pull the cord
to start the chainsaw.
You head towards the deceased pine,
and I watch how you slice at each side:
slowly,
carefully,
in such a way as to predict
the landing area
the tree will choose.
Finally I see you pull away your blade,
and simultaneously I hear the crack
of timber about to swoon.
You begin to run
in the direction you’ve decided
will be opposite
to the path of the tree,
and I watch through parted fingers
to see if you’ve made the right decision.
Seconds later I exhale deeply, lowering my hand,
as the tree settles noisily,
on its side, into the dirt.
The tension that permeated the moment
settles into dust.
There is nothing left to do now,
except load up our treasure
and wind our way
back down the mountain.
On the way
I fall asleep to the sound of CBC News,
almost safe at last.
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19. |
Both Solo
00:24
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Your fingers
run gently
along the strings
of your guitar,
striking chords
in my soul.
You read me
as plainly
as the notes
on your page,
each one
with a different
sound,
and meaning.
My voice aches
to break in,
and harmonize
with your music,
but you only play solos.
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Erin J. Bauman the Panoptical Poet Castlegar, British Columbia
The Panoptical Poet is an environmental and social justice word warrior who ex-amines the many varying viewpoints of our
current global reality.
Each poem Erin writes is an attempt at bringing to light the undervalued voices that are being silenced in the landscape of our collective conversations.
Find more Panoptical Poetry/Merchandise on the linktr.ee in bio.
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