Humming Bird Dreams Press launches BROKEN MAN

New publishing concern Humming Bird Dreams Press launched Raul Gatica's poetry collection Broken Man (Hombre Roto) at Vancouver Public Liberry, Saturday November 14, 2015. A co-presentation Hummingbird and Spanish-language online magazine, Cencerro, the author and friends gathered to celebrate the new collection. Several speakers were on hand to sing the bi-lingual book's praises and to celebrate. Gatica, a Oaxacan political refugee and now exile, living in Vancouver since 2005, has remained a high profile activist for social justice and various causes. His activism in his native country led to 13 arrests, torture and the need to flee his homeland in fear for his life. Throughout the formal refugee process, Raul has continued to write, organize and speak out against oppression and tyranny.

The poems chronicle every aspect of a doomed relationship. A jagged sense of romance and the fallout of a love betrayed are the primary features of this literary litany of the Hombre Roto (the Broken Man). Raul read selected pieces from the book and after each I read the same poem in English. A lively Q and A followed the reading. If you like your love poems bloodied and your poets bruised and battered, Broken Man will speak to you.

   

©2015 Champsteen Publishing

Elegy by A Cree Sojourner (poem)

I am not afraid of being poor, being homeless…I’ve done that…

I am not afraid of breaking ribs (twice), my neck, my ankle, my skull…

been there done that…and feeling much better now

I am not afraid of having a gun pointed at me (3 times)

cause only one ever actually pulled the trigger…and he missed

I am not afraid of my mother going away, or my father or all my grandparents…

for those things happened a long time ago

I cannot say if in his lifetime, my father ever knew freedom

but in mine…he is free

It could be true that like history, it is by now well-established

that I am, as they say: an open book

and thankfully subject to revision

brother can you spare a dime?

hey man, change comes from within!

There is no longer fear of a broken heart or abandoned love

I know what those things are

I confess to the mercenary intentions

of having her soft lips on mine

there, I said it

what am I but one among this rogue species

like the mountains I have been shaped by time

in fact, I am here because of those long-gone, graceful ones

who somehow walk beside me still

in memory, in spirit

guiding me safely

through the no man’s land of my own good intentions,

to yet more meaningful ways of being

helping locate a measure of grace

during damp arthritic coastal mornings

learning to care for this temple bruised and battered through 43 winters,

grasping that there are surely now more sunsets

in the rear-view mirror than lie before me…

(but you never know)

yes, their presence comforts me

as I experience these fearsome markers of time

most days I have transcended my ancient wounds

free of that kind of pain

though the psychic tissue of scars will always remain,

just out of sight

clung to and kept in my own place of sacred things

summoned when needed to inform, to illuminate,

to be together during your own long dark night of the soul

for why else are we here?

and I stand shoulder to shoulder with front-line helpers and healers

who do the heavy lifting,

who understand that we will only heal together or die one by one

alone as individuals

as a man of the plains it is ironic that I am once again at the frontier

only this time at the borderline of the imagination

standing opposed to ones who elevate human constructs above the natural world

people unable or unwilling to understand

that the way you think about something changes the way it works –

I oppose worshipers at the altar of the holy market

with their inflationary interest in histories’ latest empire

they seem induced by some archaic voice stranded in time

a voice spouting authoritative versions of events

tenure-tracked versions of events

second-hand, borrowed and stolen knowledge

with concerns somehow vested

in salacious accounts of quote-unquote history

ideas are the currency in my trade

in this most crucial reclamation project

for some reason

the challenge seems to be to respect the ancestors and celebrate the living

do you see that it is the very rugged and elemental nature of this hard land

that makes the Indian heart and spirit so pliable?

It’s tough love from our first mother

I have no illusions of permanence and little time for regret,

despair is a sin against the imagination in places like this

my destiny is no longer shaped by others without shame

or without reverence for the things I am…I am the elements…

my life is a subterranean call, no – it is a demand for justice

I am not…but the way? -

the way is righteous

the truth is righteous

even in the city

I know places where can I sit alone among stones polished by mild-mannered rain

I can always locate a vantage point to watch the crows

and be moved by their nightly, spectral pilgrimage

through the great nation that is the sky

even in the city

I hear creator

in my daughter tapping keys on a piano in the next room

there are stations, thresholds and bridges

constructed by others before me that I cross

to arrive in places I could not possibly have gotten to on my own

I keep frequent company with other ways of thinking

road men and matriarchs who have all walked the long road

when necessary developed other modes of orienting themselves in

social and spiritual space

I seek counsel with those happily immersed in old-growth forests of the mind

who may yet teach me other ways

of interacting at all times with the earth itself

I am touched by these warriors of the heart and road

in this company there is space for you

in this company may you find watershed thoughts

of the sacred heart of the world –

come know what love is really like

and dream of worlds to come

© 2013 Champsteen Publishing

(Magpie) Language of the Heart

I constructed this poem sometime in 1998 or 99 and at that time had been aware of my brother’s contracting the HIV virus for (just under) 10 years – he’d been living with it years longer. I tried to workshop it in a UBC creative writing class right after I wrote it because I liked it but I could never get through it.

My brother Kelly was called Magpie because he was brash, loud, occasionally a pest…and beautiful. He and I spent time together in the same foster home as very small children and I remember us constantly running away and every time (for some reason) taking off our shoes and socks (which always made them SO mad, lol). We were split up for this and I was not to see him again until we were grown men by which time he had become ill.

It would be a lie to say we got along well all the time though we did have our moments. On rare occasions we sat up all night drinking at the rez and regaled each other with our exploits and daring adventures. The other end of our experiential equation is that for subtle and deep reasons we could almost never seem so get along. I was needful but not in the same way as when we were children and he clearly had basic needs of a kind we intuitively understood could not be met. On some level, I believe we were resentful towards each other for apparently leaving the other way back when (which of course is ridiculous), while at the same time angry at ourselves for feeling powerless to help someone (your own brother) so clearly in need of help. This kind of anger, frustration and unresolved feelings of futility are so prevalent in our community that it can make people lash out at whoever is near. My brother and I fought at a house party on the rez (which I had invited him to as a means of reconciliation). I came away from that encounter with a broken ankle and today I wear the incident as a badge of honor in some circles, and in others, it provides clear evidence of the the fact that often it is hurt people who hurt people.

It so happened in the palliative care ward of an Edmonton hospital one night (as outside a late spring blizzard was subsiding) that I was alone with Kelly for the last time in this life. Due to weather, timing and grace it was just my brother and I. These were the days of SARS-related health concerns and so hospital staff insisted visitors don all manner of protective-wear (latex gloves, gown, mask and cap) which of course I removed once we were alone soon after midnight. He was far past any ability to speak or communicate but I was aware he could understand me because tears would stream from the waxy hollows where his eyes had once been as I began to speak as I felt compelled to do once we were alone. I thanked my brother for looking after us as little boys in the best way he could and told him how good he looked (Magpies crave attention, you see) and how lucky he was to soon be with everyone who had come before us. His hands were cold as I held them and told him I had written a poem about him and though I could only remember the last part I would recite what I had memorized (the stanza beginning: in my dreams – we are boys again…)

It was, as mentioned, his last night on earth but it is the best of him which with stays with me, informs me, guides me, comforts and protects me. He is still my big brother. It is special on a personal scale but it feels like a blessed and pre-destined thing to have been with Kelly and to have been able to look after him, if only once and to know for certain there was love in his final moments. Art can be transcendent at times and is, I believe, spiritual practice.

Ekosi





Magpie

Carrying tobacco
and colored prints of fabric
I stand barefoot in wet grass -
traffic drowns out the sound of my voice
but I am speaking
and I am looking to the sky

Saying that you have gone south
and you still have the gun with you,
they promise me they will catch up to you
(who is to punish them for their crimes?)
I would believe them were it not for the knowledge
that none has ever been able to catch up with you
so hard and fast do you run -
and I am wary of promises

It has never been the way between us to agree
but tonight,
I want you to keep on running

With clenched teeth
and fists
I demand answers
(where there are none)

I demand answers!

In every direction that I look for you
I see faces committed to forgetting,
dedicated to relegating us to mere “social
constructs,” rejecting antithetical images
of what they think Indians are

we are:
boys stolen at 2 and 6 years old
boys raised by strangers without black hair, and then
boys who return home as strange men
boys sharing a mother poisoned by prescriptions
boys whose cousins hang in trees
boys finding uncles with shotgun holes in them
boys who have not forgiven their fathers – only forgotten them
boys who are bleeding


In my dreams
we are boys again
and running barefoot through city streets
our shoes discarded
It must be that you remember
a place worth running to -
I am scared
but you are older
and I will follow you anywhere

Magpie,
you are that dark bird
wounded,
singing in the dead of night
waiting your whole life for a moment to arrive

Tonight
I can feel a cold wind at my back
on this wind
will you fly over gray fields?
your feathers long, blue and black
along the river’s silent edge will you soar?

If only one good memory
is left in our hearts
I will meet you there


©2012 Champsteen Publishing

Words That Actually Matter (article)

Years ago, in a poetry workshop at UBC an established and esteemed Canadian writer (won’t say which one) questioned the wisdom behind my writing practice when I told her and my classmates I seldom saved copies of any of my poems up to that point. People in the room seemed incredulous (disbelieving). “Well, what on earth do you do with them?” - one of them interrogated. “I put them in letters.” “Letters?” “Yes.” “You don’t keep a copy for yourself?” “Maybe some of them do, but I don’t.” “Don’t you want to publish any of them?” “Only one person, anywhere has that poem - doesn't that make it special?” You could see wheels turning as the writer remarked, rather dismissively, “well, if you published any of them then at least you’d get to do things like come here and read for you guys.” I couldn’t argue with that rationale but it also occurs to me that in all truth I can’t remember any of that woman’s poetry, a Governor General’s Award winner, mind you, indicating that somebody, somewhere must like her work. I’ve always said that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure – which more or less means that you can’t account for taste and this includes areas such as that routinely referred to as art. But I've also asked: is it memorable?...will I or anyone else remember it? I can think of only 2 authors whose poetry I can read for an hour or longer in one sitting - e.e. cummings and Al Purdy - NOBODY else (not even my own stuff, haha!)...and I love poetry. Some collections of poetry? you need only open and turn to a page, any page and read a stanza or selection then turn to any other random page and read and you will think you are reading the same poem. Leaf through it and it is like reading the same poem over and over again - one...long...poem. One doesn't seem distinguishable from any other. Many are called, but few are chosen, haha! Entertainment is a different beast in my mind. I won’t get into providing examples of expression I feel are art and those which are entertainment, cause some…are both. At any rate, I listened to a fantastic interview with Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are. The writer remarked - “my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson and Mozart,” and I have long felt and said the same thing. The writers (though not always necessarily what might be considered the “great” writers) told and taught me most about what it meant...to be alive. As a passed-around Indian kid I never experienced an adult or elder figure who shared with me or provided me with context or background about the world I inhabited. It was only through literature (with a Big L), certainly not comic books, or children’s television or movies that I found the insight that would resonate with what I call my soul. It is not an exaggeration to say the great and lesser writers were more a mother, father or grandparent to me than any actual living human being until I was well into in my twenties (and people wonder why I'm such a strange guy haha!). But I also feel, about writing, and the words which have spoken to me and still exist to speak to me long, long after they were written – I believe in them with all my heart, for they have, as much as anything, changed me. These things are true. So, for me, to write is not an entertainment or a past time or a hobby - it is a compulsion. It is something I must do. If once, even twice in a life a writer can summon, then put down, words with any kind of depth he can go beyond entertaining, he can touch people and he can move them, and he can make them think and he can thereby enlighten them. For the first time on my blog I am including work by other artists.

Lorraine (I called her Lou) was 19, I was 23 or 24 or so when we knew each other at Lake Louise and worked together in an ancient, rustic, wooden hotel, high in the Rocky mountains in the early nineties. In our off-hours, she and I were in the habit of reading to each other until the one being read to fell asleep. There was a lot of napping going on up there and I’m sure it had nothing to do with how much pot was being used. Either way, I was given this poem during our time together and I kept it and it is very dear to me. I don’t claim it to be about or inspired by me - I don't wish to convince you of it's literary merits or impact - it is just something beautiful for me and I have held onto the words. Thanks Lou

I See You

You are my window to the world

Brush your finger upon my cheek

a touch that be so daisy petal soft

Our souls entwined, we conquer all mightier

sail the un-sailable seas

Unsure as a new born, my eyes remain closed

Life’s golden hand at love

an attempt to caress the sweetness

only to feel the rose’s prick

The blood trickles to drop free

you’ve pierced my naïve heart

To laugh and dance upon my remains still,

as I breathe your sweet breath

I lay with no heart

only to see you continue your journey in another’s hand

- Lorraine F.

Finally, I am posting this poem by Storm (my daughter) who was 7 when she composed this and it just may be my favorite poem…period. Pardon me if I don’t mistake this for evidence of possession of not only an abstract thought process, but an elegant one…

My Special Place

I have a special place

It is quiet as a snake

It is quiet as snow falling

It is so quiet I can hear the sound of wind going by

It is so quiet I can hear the butterflies flying by me

I have a special place -

it is a lake and lots of other things

- Storm Standing-On-The-Road

Like Maurice Sendak said: art has always been my salvation.

©2011 Champsteen Publishing

She...(poem)...

 

taste water,

autumn and the best mentioned of her –

be it the truth or some other way of saying

that my mother’s name is Edna

she is long gone yet has given me everything

build stories,

fire and kinship –

calmly speak so there is no mistaking

that my sister’s name is Ruby

she, like all my sisters, shares with me

every instance of this beautiful torment

sit silent,

fasting and on a hill –

breathe life then summon gentle words

because my grandmother’s name is Betsy

and remember that any place you ever go,

she has been there first

get posies,

foxtail and dandelion root –

each a medicine and each her favorite

tell everyone you meet, remember this:

my youngest daughter’s name is Grace

she too is woman and she gives me everything

© 2011 Champsteen Publishing

Conversation on Poetry (interview)

*update (added March 13) - the page totals referred to in this clip include ALL writing, ALL genres; professional, academic and otherwise, NOT simply 1600 pages of poetry as may seem to be implied...which isn't really THAT many pages considering a novelist writing a book per year (or every other) may easily have completed well over 2000-3000 pages (or more) since 1998...still, i think of it as an accomplishment...



met the interviewer (Kathleen Imbert) at a book launch/reading (Salish Seas Anthology) i hosted - she was interested in my writing experience in poetry as a subject applied to her current training in broadcasting - a fascinating 1st Nations woman, from Wikwemikong Un-ceded 1st Nation in Ontario, owns and operates an art gallery in France and has lived in Aix en Provence these past 30 years - the entire exchange demonstrates one of the main ideas i had when i began this blog - our people networking, collaborating and utilizing various media and their creativity to tell stories...


*(who in the !@#$% left the Starbuck's cup in the shot?!?)




© 2011 Champsteen Publishing

Yellowbird Eulogy (or A Personal Cree Love Song for My Father)...poem

Yellowbird Eulogy (or A Personal Cree Love Song For My Father)

It is a breathless wind that sighs this morning
over this hard land, this country
I am here to speak of him
as is my right…as he is no more

I want to speak of love,
love mean
love lost, stolen and misplaced
and maybe of love enduring

Words have always been my medicine
good and bad
in my youth I did not believe in bad medicine
I took for granted the idea that one merely prayed
and the world was yours
but the with the passing of so many days and relations
I am older and so are those dreams

Father, when they put you in the ground
not all your children came and only your last wife
a solemn distance was kept between those present
out of respect or grief and those who came for closure

“I gave you everything – ” you once said
“all that I had”
nothing could have been more true

this cannot be explained to my friend and sister Ruby
a woman six month older than I
our mothers with different names
he is gone, I say
but for her, nothing has changed

and what about Tony?
my oldest brother from another mother
he slaps his knee and cackles
and tells of a flea-bitten, broken down quarter horse
my father gave to him for his son
a horse Tony named Glue
“the old man,” he would chuckle,
“still waiting for the buffalo to come to back”

Where are you now Mitchell?
a brother from yet another mother
who, before he was killed, told my father,
“if I didn’t love you I’d have killed you a long time ago
you son of a bitch!”
with me
my brother remains that tiger, tiger burning bright

He did not give me ponies, however
but I know traveling vast distances
on the power of 350 horses
taming a 1975 two-door Chevrolet
my own fire engine red convertible pony
40 miles to the gallon
a steel-wheeled faithful steed if ever there was one
mine is a death race with the past
I survey the human wreckage all around me
and convince myself that I am winning

I kept the fire that final night we watched over you, dad
smoke rose from what I had built
wood burned and carried my fingerprints
in wisps to the ages

they tell me I am much like you
prone to vanishing for days
and, at times, for years
for you it was into the army
a place you would never talk about
though when you came out, they said,
you were never the same -
long before that, you disappeared to residential school
a euphemism for labor camp in our country
a place that saw you and other Indian children
labor, work and grind away
to refine their lumber, their leather, their tin
and their words
so you spoke in two tongues
never fluent in one
not much good at the other
a man for whom words simply got in the way

I too can disappear – it’s easy
I hitch-hike and sing for my supper
and am usually in any place but where I want to be
I also carry a restless heart
and little patience for fools
too proud to admit that I am among the biggest fools there are

It’s true I don’t remember everything
but about him I will say
he did give me things...
like kisses, guitars, his eyes and lessons
on how not to treat our mothers
I learned these things well
I am nothing if not a good student

Scene:
Christmas 1973
A shabby cowtown 2nd story walk-up
Four little Indians cower and watch as a whiskey-fueled battle rages
It’s Indian against Indian
in this fight we hope she wins

(fast forward)

Scene:
Christmas 1999
Just outside the reservation in a dimly lit trailer shack
over Wild Turkey a more subtle clash commences
“how come you don’t speak better Cree?”
“how come none of your other kids visit you...dad?”
It’s still Indian against Indian
and in this fight nobody wins

And didn’t we both love white women, dad?
didn’t we both learn our lessons well?
didn’t we both wind up broken men?
your arm and skull to her racist father and brother
and much later, my heart to another's indifference -
now, even I know that you cannot cross the streams

Father you have left me in a strange time
where there is no room for men and women in the bottom line
where the only person who cares
less about your problems...is everybody
Would it please or disappoint you to know that I am educated?
whatever that means and for what it’s worth

We are Indians you and I, aren’t we?
we do not fight and die for our right to cast our vote
we are born with that right
we fight and die to feed our children...and our souls

and we dance –
I think of you as a grass dancer
laying it out for all those that followed
your death giving us a place to meet one last time
If anything I am a ghost-dancer
summoning you and everyone I can think of
dancing as fast as I can
hoping against hope that one day I may see you again
and none of us will ever know any kind of hunger again

Uncle Bob once said:
if you don’t believe there’s a price for this sweet paradise,
just remind me and I’ll show you the scars

well I wear the scars of this love
I carry them like a sacred pipe handed down
the scars are mine and no one need understand them
I too know what it is love something or someone
that you can’t even stand

there it is again...that word
Love
I am hanging on to it
It is all I have and all I have to give
It is my reward and my punishment
and the mightiest weapon there is against forgetting

So long Apps…father
I may see you again at the Wrecking Ball Tavern, in Hell,
Where they’ll play country songs about
faster horses
younger women
older whiskey...and more money

or maybe,
after time out in the happy hunting ground
I’ll see you at the Howard Buffalo Memorial Rec Center
we’ll meet inside the eternal Round dance
and we’ll meet there as young men
in a place of sacred things
where only our names are remembered
and there is no word in our language for redemption

ekosi


© 2011 Champsteen Publishing

Dismantling A Mystery (or How Come It Doesn’t Rhyme?)...

the poem:



Seeing You For The First Time…

is like remembering
that with Indians, it is all one:
Velvet rain falling over lush Peace Hills back home -
Old man stone glowing in fire
at Beetle Omeasoo’s sweatlodge at Ermineskin -
Hundreds of black wings beating in the great nation that is the sky
each night high above Coastal Salish ground -
Or…your gentle voice heard in woods at Qu’appelle




photo of larry by j-ro
editing a friend's poetry manuscript and helping another with their work it occurred to me that this poem might shed some light on MY theory and process (in particular), it is simply the way i see and do it...proceed at your own interest...

poetry is NOT for everybuddy...one of my favorite crushes, one of the ten most beautiful people in the world informed me she wouldn't even finish reading one of my poems that she came across...this is not to focus on her (i mean it’s clear she loves my body…but i want her to love my mind - i’m an artist after all) but to indicate how adamant people can be or how adverse to verse some people are...but why should this be? - many theories out there but i tend to think the reasons are mainly these:

a) people tend to think of poetry ONLY as that Shakespearean sonnet they made you memorize while holding a gun to your head back in high school...it was traumatic, you know it was AND you never did figure out what the hell was meant before and after the words: tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow...

b) the only poetry you've read since high school was by that ditzy, hippy-chick or the whacked out dude so spaced on the chronic that you thought everything they said was poetry (cause you were a little whack-y AND ditzy yerself back then)...until much later you realized they were committing to paper every pointless, free associative, incoherent pile of syllabic word-turds you ever read but it also occurs to you much later how badly you wanted to get in their pants or how bad they wanted in yours, so much so that even the words "fuck off and die!" seemed to resonate with insight (at last - someone really gets me!), seemed razor-sharp with clarity of purpose and breadth of vision and…romance, even (whoah...think i love him/her).

So people have either read the most difficult and challenging poetry in the English language (the dreaded Elizabethan iambic pentameter) OR the shit that literally means nothing…at any rate had you the chance to read a cross selection of contemporary poetry (that is, poetry written in your time, which typically is free-verse or not in a specific structure on the page) there isn't a doubt in my mind that you would eventually find work by someone that does in fact speak to you, resonates with you and has you come to appreciate what can often be the profound power and beauty of language (more about this topic in future posts)...

for now, it would appear that i must be changing, growing or getting weak in the head because i'm doing something i NEVER do...which is – ANALYZE A POEM...of my own... this one called: Seeing You For The First Time...(located at the top of this post)

using the first line as the title is a device that goes back centuries...couldn't possibly remember where I first saw it, though i know Shakespeare did do this often with his numbered sonnets as did ee cummings, bill bissett, al purdy and many, many other poem-makers have also done this through the ages and i rather like to do this at times when the opening line results in a sense of intrigue or contemplation in the reader...i try to find (use/write) something specific but also it is working if there’s a chance the reader believes they could actually contribute the next line...admittedly, though, writing this first section of explanation reminds me that the first line of THIS particular poem became the title only AFTER most of the rest had been composed...so, the use of this device didn't become apparent to me to until later in the process but it's an example of what i call a happy accident...this might seem to imply that ALL or ANY poem or poetry could simply use as it's title the first line of the poem but this is not the case…

back to the poem…I’ll come clean, now…this one was inspired by (surprise, surprise)…a girl!...i had the opening line (which became the title)…then, very simply…I compared that meeting to 4 different and beautiful things:

1. rainfall
2. rocks in a fire
3. birds flying
4. the woman’s voice

...and that’s all there was to it...more or less...

seeing her for the first time WAS beautiful…the title/first line would be a cliché if the rest of the poem used typical language or imagery…it would not work if I simply said:

…seeing you is like rainfall, rocks in a fire, bird’s flying and your voice…


we learned in early grade school what the words “like” or “as” do to a sentence…it takes a phrase from being understood literally and then makes it a figure of speech (a metaphor)…so, seeing her wasn’t actually or in fact (literally) all those things, it was LIKE all those things, this idea goes a long, long way in language…if you say: seeing you IS nice…seeing you is good - these sentiments may be true but they are bland, mundane and hearing them a thousand times will mean much less the thousandth time you hear it…and haven’t we heard “nice” or “happy” used thousands of times by the time we become adults?...nice and good are for babies and puppies…

the craft of writing involves your choice of words and arrangement of them, the specifics that will spur the imagination of the reader - it's in the details...this is where it can be way, way overdone or one uses descriptions heard a million times (but you know what? people love that...ask Hallmark), OR the poem can become something fresh, not said in quite the same way before, evocative of so much OR it may simply sound lyrical to the point where speech and music seem to meld...ALL these things are possible at this stage if you care enough (or if you care little about what you make) - - in this poem, alongside the 4 items, i have also included four specific Indian PLACES; peace hills, ermineskin, coast salish ground and qu’appelle…NOT ALL readers will be aware of all the references but I’m betting the good reader will make those connections without having heard of one or all of the geographical places referred to in the piece…

i confess, i can’t say precisely what: with indians it is all one, means, but i don't need to…i did want to convey the idea that…indians…know…what do they know?...this question in my mind propels the poem, elevates it, transports the reader’s mind, implies so much, opens the piece so that any reader of any background will intuitively define this phrase for themselves…this, in my mind is where god came in, the synaptic exchange, the happy accident, where the rubber met the road, where the exposition became art…

It then occurred to me that indians are only here today BECAUSE WE REMEMBER, we exist the way we do because of the way we keep our histories’ alive…with our voices, through orality, through externalizing memory (in other words, talking - and now, through writing, even blogging, very subversive if you ask me, you may disagree but go ahead,…you’re allowed)…so it also felt intuitive to place the idea of memory or remembering SOMEWHERE in the piece…

This all could be summed up by saying: first seeing her reminded me of these beautiful things – but i wanted her to fall in love in with me, i wanted to inspire the reader to look at objects of their own desire in a way they never had before…it was and remains a tall order but it’s what you want to do every time out…you want to somehow change the universe for someone (sometimes it’s just yourself) with your ideas because it was done for you, to you by others before you and it’s a safe bet that these experiences/exchanges will continue long after my time…you want the words you choose to be vivid and strong and say a lot with a lot of power but often times it is (what you don’t say or) what you say by implication that has the most power.

SO…how much of this, in the end, applies to what i wrote that day?...all of it.

How much of this occurred to me WHILE i wrote it?...none of it.

it this i call…magic



© 2010 Champsteen Publishing

Ka'wahse (audio poem) feat. Duane Howard

Flute: Duane Howard

Ka'wahse*

wherever it is
i’ll more than likely see you there

i marvel at what is to be found at 2 am
(2:20, technically)

only in poems do dogs bite gently
and we call ourselves poets

sometimes I am taken by the thrill of recognition
of who we are (who the other is)
of what we do (have always done)
traveling light leaving nothing behind
packing up heavy sorrows for when they become useful
forced to understand, that at times,
we may make sense only to ourselves

there is nothing un-real
about an embrace on some half-remembered shore –
words spent high in mountaintops (which of course, you understand,
were once at the bottom of the sea?)

we dance our ridiculous lives beneath the pen
but eventually come clean,
admit these things matter
love things hard to hold onto –
people now distant as the moon, some only an arm’s length away

what will they understand of your footprints upon this ground? –
ashes that were once your bones –
your fingerprints upon their minds –
echoes of your voice in their dreams
when there was so much in the world to make us bleed

will everything you gave be enough?
the sad and beautiful part is that it will have to be

ours is to be transient and grounded at once
rooted in something no one can say

i say:
let those without black hair fret and strut
their final hour upon the stage, their idiot’s tale

which is simply another way to say:
i’m glad i was an indian

it is crucial to believe in things
like a good song,
time spent on that half-forgotten shore,
that somewhere,
we signified something

it is good knowing
that it is a cold distance
from here to the nearest star
but warm between this page
and where these words go


* (Mohawk word, meaning - Where are you going?)

© 2010 Champsteen Publishing

All There Is...(audio poem)

All There Is…

is an old woman's voice
in a run-down little house on a piece of borrowed land
this side of the reserve
I remember the old woman in dark skin and white hair telling me – warning me:
a story told without love will not be remembered

like indians do,
I took you as my grandmother, never having met either of my own (or my mother)
and I took those words as commandments
or more accurately, I took stewardship of your words,
I protected them
like indians do

my damaged memory of your ghostly form
is framed by crumpled leaves and dense grasses
deadfall and marshy muskeg,
I am not painting a quaint, rustic, idyllic landscape
not singing to the “oneness” of anything
I am beyond remembering
and singing my own song

in a place where I saw bent women, berry-picking
and one with lips, stained red and succulent
I tried but found I could never taste that good to her
and on and on and on…

I carry my grief and gladness and never look back

in these places…I saw
in every village, every town, each weigh station
I have been a pilgrim, a merchant trading stories, hands and more

at calgary
at brindisi,
at neskonlith
at santorini
at peace hills
at oaxaca
at napean
at musqueam
at white bear
at oslo
at yellowknife
at oppenheimer park

unvarnished episodes, encounters, entanglements
recorded only in an island of lost memories that you may have
of her telling you: it’s alright…you’re okay,
and these things were so only because she said they were

she has pulled us through birth canals and rites of passage…the death of my brothers
because of men she wore outmoded black veils and still
set broken bones, nourished us with compassion
we were astonished, emboldened, fed and far better…soothed
when we felt as motherless children
when we felt at the brink of cavernous dark

from the margins they shape the world
through cultures melding and those long since vanished
there are still glimpses of something permanent, eternal

it is that I long for the comfort of her voice
snatch for it like a thief
guard it like final embers carried
across tundra by dried mud tribes of stone age

once,
there were long strands of hair, shiny and damp
that fell across her shoulders, beneath the sunlight…

these sapphire-tinted recollections (every last one)
are her words and are air and water and reflection

I am nothing, sometimes not even a man
just a word-finder, conjurer of everything you have already said,
without you I would have stayed nothing, dust or the thought of it
but now something is created across time and space
because she was here, existed

the first mother wears these lakes and rivers,
mountains, meadows, towns and cities
and I am given to worship of things I cannot explain –
condemn those foolish enough to live without magic –

she teaches me to understand
that every woman is someone’s daughter on this perilous journey
that life beyond every kind of poverty is better
and though yet hungry for that great wisdom and power
I am still ashamed (though still alive),
still asking the same foolish questions as in ages past

but for you I am contented with love…every kind of love
and I now know where all words come from
with me it is sacred faith that there is grace among storm
and on certain miracle nights, sometimes, I almost feel…beloved

the great wisdom of her collective ages:
that love does not conquer
but it can survive…

it has at least that much power


© 2010 Champsteen Publishing

Honour Song (poem)...

Peace, my friend,
peace

there is no darkness, only not knowing

so pray…and believe

and I think I can see you –
I can see those brown eyes half on their way to heaven
I look with sight more honest
than my eyes deliver
I listen to you, to your songs
(some unchanged in a thousand years)
with something more true
than my ears can hear
Walk with me awhile
with something more real
than the touch of my hand upon your shoulder

Here, together
there is no more turning away
there is no more tearing ourselves in two
If there is any comfort here for you
know that I too am sick with my experience
I marvel at the strange rivers we have crossed
rivers on whose far banks lie forests
where men, women and children are lost
we seek shelter
and someone with that look in their eye
though our hearts may have grown weary
and just a little shy

In another life
I may have brought bridled horses and game –
for you, for your family
and spoken of good things between us and Nations
For a night or two
I might have stayed outside your lodges
with those horses, and waited
sleeping only after you and yours had done so first
perhaps I carried a powerful bundle or shield –
carried them for everyone

Yet today,
we are here, together
Though there may still be an aching sadness –
for those ones crossed over –
they are not gone – they do not sleep
but have awakened from the dream of life
(as spirits live forever)
It is we who stumble
through these stormy visions
chasing phantoms and madness
Must we still decay and wither
and fall each day with our fear, shame and grief? –
our days before this
little more than cold hopes?

Then pray…and believe

The Oldest One remains
Many will change and pass
but there is a light that forever shines
and while Earth’s shadows fly
our hearts will be opened wide

And when I fall –
when I am caught down deep, beyond all reach
I will keep you safe with me, like a warm wind
like a sweet waterfall

When I close my eyes I see you –
you are walking on a bridge
glancing over the mysterious water
there is still a trace of fear
but I can also see that you know
there is something better
yes, you know there are things better
than to live in dark water

And after all this,
when some gentle night descends
when there is, at last, stillness
when you are no longer alone at sea
but close to my heart
I will look to the West
to see a great and glorious red sky – an eternal sky

I will whisper things sacred
like…hear me
like…remember
like…your name,
and I will wonder
if you too can see that same red sky

Big Brown Beautiful Bannock-Stuffed Indians (audio poem)

Big Brown Beautiful Bannock-stuffed Indians…

are puttin’ on their bingo shirts
and headed down to the hall early for the good seats
grab seven chicken and spud meals to go –
alright, gimme 20 dollars worth and a Bonanza!

darkened and bulging eating muscles
just a goin’ to beat ol’ sixty
with a smoldering pihtwanis* dangling here
and a Pepsi making the rounds there –
I can’t get lucky, I was born lucky!

Big brown beautiful bannock-stuffed Indians
are dancing all night in great circles
ribbon shirts and wranglers
and numberless children all doing the indigenous shuffle –
hey, anybody see where my kids went?

bannock-slapped and neck-boned to the brim
with room only for tea…and the next meal
food always tastes better when it’s free
besides, who needs money on a good rez anyway? –
ho-la, there’s a lot of neechees here tonight!

Big brown beautiful bannock-stuffed Indians
are trying to win and round-dance in the cities
tradition is taking its own sweet time
but it’s coming…and everybody knows everybody –
Dear Uncle, it’s just like you said it would be…

home-fed scouts and wide-eyed warriors
are in every place you care to look
pounding on pavement, doors and drums
and recreating ourselves constantly –
I am home, I am home, I am home



* pihtwanis – Cree word for “cigarette”


© 2010 Champsteen Publishing

Audio Poem (Is It Your Blood?...)

(Larry Nicholson)

IS IT YOUR BLOOD?...

in these children
as they lark in the shallow water of the river
oblivious to old words
and so much time

these shiny-haired children at play
some named after you,
some with your eyes
these sons and daughters of darkness and light
carrying our best hopes, vague as they may be
that here, 100 years on
things might be different

to sit and look upon the young at their brilliant best
is to hear echoes of you in their laughter
it is to remember time out of mind
before a cavalcade of others
and their rush for gold – their lust
left so many of the brightest trampled underfoot

Is it your blood?

in dense sagebrush, sun-baked hills
and coursing through steel-head streams
that moves us to demand an accounting of things
to cling to the notions behind words that read:
they might do the square thing by us in the end

some days it takes a kind of strength
to remember (or believe)
that there ever was a day when hearts were warm
when all the country was so much more
than just pieces of land

to sit quiet and listen for the rush of water
is to seek your whispered words
learn your hard lessons
know the quiet victories
of you the peaceful soldiers of nameless nights
many times without place to rest your thoughts

100 years on
we know the tongues of angels and the tongues of men
we ride the ribbon highways
walk the golden valleys
see the endless sky-way
we leave our own impressions
spread across silver sand and diamond desert

we form markers and monuments
so others may know something of the sacred trust
that lies before us all

we find ourselves, at times, in the border towns of despair
asking what it is to regret what you’ve done
when you’ve never had a choice
(forgetting there is only one thing we must do)
thinking that somehow we needed to nurse your wounds
heal your hurts, soothe your aches
losing sight of the fact
that as you surge through these veins
we are your prayers answered

Is it your blood?

that sounds in the windy voice of conscience
that resonates louder and more deeply
with each passing hour
each passing day
each passing life

that reminds us the land is not merely a stage
upon which mountains, rivers and forests are simply props
little places, set pieces, where we play out our human drama

no,
this land lives
surely as i walk and talk and take you with me
some days the best i can do is resist the urge to sit back
and curse being caught between overlapping nightmares

Is it your blood?

that remind us
that children raised to revere this land as the domain of spirits
will not be the same as ones brought up to cut the land –
to tame it

there is no wilderness but what is in the heart
if you know this country as the people do

long, long after there are any voices
to ask these questions
there is just your good blood
coursing throughout

i raise my arms to the night time sky –
the great nation that is the sky
where you glimmer in constellations

where the only darkness is in not knowing
that we are lost…

only in wonder



Vancouver, July 27, 2010


© 2010 Champsteen Publishing

It's mother's day...

this poem was originally composed for International Women's Day...

- - -

All THERE IS...

is the sound of an old woman's voice
in a run-down little house on a piece of borrowed land
this side of the reserve
I remember her in dark skin and white hair telling me, warning me –
a story told without love will not be remembered

like indians do,
I took you as my grandmother, never having met either of my own (or my mother)
and I took those words as commandments
or more accurately, I took stewardship of your words,
I protected them
like indians do

my damaged memory of your ghostly form
is framed by crumpled leaves and dense grasses
deadfall and marshy muskeg,
I am not painting a quaint, rustic, idyllic landscape
not singing to the “oneness” of anything
I am beyond remembering
and singing my own song

in a place where I saw bent women, berry-picking
and one with lips, stained red and succulent
I tried but found I could never taste that good to her
and on and on and on…

I carry my grief and gladness and never look back

in these places…I saw
in every village, every town, each weigh station
I have been a pilgrim, a merchant, trading stories, hands and more

at calgary
at brindisi,
at neskonlith
at santorini
at peace hills
at oaxaca
at napean
at musqueam
at white bear
at oslo
at yellowknife
at oppenheimer park

unvarnished episodes, encounters, entanglements
recorded only in an island of lost memories that you may have
of her telling you: it’s alright…you’re okay,
and these things were so only because she said they were

she has pulled us through birth canals and rites of passage…the death of my brothers
because of men she wore outmoded black veils and still
set broken bones, nourished us with compassion
we were astonished, emboldened, fed and far better…soothed
when we felt as motherless children
when we felt at the brink of cavernous dark

from the margins they shape the world
through cultures melding and those long since vanished
there are still glimpses of something permanent, eternal

it is that I long for the comfort of her voice
snatch for it like a thief
guard it like final embers carried
across tundra by dried mud tribes of stone age

once,
there were long strands of hair, shiny and damp
that fell across her shoulders, beneath the sunlight…

these sapphire-tinted recollections (every last one)
are her words and are air and water and reflection

I am nothing, sometimes not even a man
just a word-finder, conjurer of everything you have already said,
without you I would have stayed nothing, dust or the thought of it
but now something is created across time and space
because she was here, existed

the first mother wears these lakes and rivers,
mountains, meadows, towns and cities
and I am given to worship of things I cannot explain –
condemn those foolish enough to live without magic –

she teaches me
to understand that every woman is someone’s daughter on this perilous journey
that life beyond every kind of poverty is better
and though yet hungry for that great wisdom and power
I am still ashamed (though still alive),
still asking the same foolish questions as in ages past

but for you I am contented with love…every kind of love
and now I know where all words come from
it is sacred faith that there is grace among storm
and on certain miracle nights, sometimes, I almost feel…beloved

the great wisdom of her collective ages:
that love cannot conquer
but it can survive…

it has at least that much power


© 2010 Champsteen Publishing