The home invaders have locked us up in the cellar where they feed us chips and pop. Booze too, rot gut, all the good stuff is upstairs.
They taunt us, Chug, why do you drink so much? Why are you so fat? Of course we drink. Anything to forget. Drink anything to forget.
They sent one to the door first, dirty and hungry, so we let him in and fed him and bathed him and gave him a place to sleep.
In the morning we made him breakfast and he still didn't leave.
The next day his friends arrived and more the next.
Quickly everything began to change. They begn speaking in harder voices and eye-fucking us. When there were enough of them, they began to order us about, disparage us and the first thing we knew we were the hungry, dirty ones wearing rags.
Poems about being Cree under the Indian Act in Canada; "Ancient History" in the present; promoting hatred against people who promote hatred against people...
Sitting at the bar having a Publican's Dinner: "a pint of beer and a punch in the nose", and the new immigrant from England sitting next to me; he likes to have a pint after work, "five or six pints actually" he admits, he has worked construction all his life, he's lived here six weeks; leans over to interject in the conversation I am having with Patrick, the bartender: "they make you racist",-- he's speaking of Indian immigrants living over in England.
My first thought is "your father made you a racist", but I bite my tongue and tell him I am Cree. He tells me that I don't look "First Nations", besides, "that Indian Stuff" happened over a hundred years ago, it's Ancient History, time to get over it.
What cheek, I think, to tell my life history without knowing the fact,-- I have this conversation every day...that in truth, there are no Indigenous Indians on this continent,-- there are Siksika, Cree, Mohawk, Taino, and hundreds of other nationalities on Turtle Island, but India, and her teeming millions of Indians, is a long way from here,-- I digress.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Friedrich Nietzsche could have been talking about racism. I find it difficult to fight racism without framing my argument in racist terms.
In the spirit of Kanada's Indian Act, The Battle of the Boyne, Redux...
-- Bóinne Again Born Again --
I
From Alexander to the present runs
an unbroken line
of murderous, ignorant Assholes waging war,
commiting heinous crimes
on the weak and defenseless in the name
of brotherhood and civilization,
at the point of a sword, barrel of a gun
or nuclear explosive;
pain warmongers never question for a second,
or feel empathy for the injured,
wounded, dead, orphaned.
II
Might makes right, only the strong survive,
the law of the jungle,
the big fish eat the small, all for one
and one for all,--
stupid sentiments, mostly untrue, mouthed by
commanders, used as whips
and prods to sow the bloom of youth
in war's furrowed rows
of trenches or crosses or poppies perhaps
a memorial to erect over bones
of an unknown brother.
III
What is it about hatred that makes it delicious
as agony sometimes can be?
Inflames the heart and fills it with rage,
anger and jealousy?
Generations after generations kindle coals
of hatred in their souls
and burn with rage at injury and insults
hundreds of years old
given distant, unknown, ancestor's bones
dead and buried in some
long forgotten hole.
IV
Born again, the Battle of the Boyne again
celebrates the bloody anniversary
when blood-bolstered Brú Na Bóinne lay
injured and crying for mercy.
Lay pressed under implacable weight of brothers'
bodies dead or still dying,
rolling armies, rolling cannon, rolling-eyed horses
squeezing life from their lungs,
hear the sounds of bone breaking under iron hooves
instead of their name whispered
in the voice of a loved one.
V
In July, Sixteen Ninety, Patrick drove the snakes
to Éireanns' Brú Na Bóinne
where coiled and writing in frothy gore
they heaved and wound and boiled.
Each snake so like the other that to hold them apart
a scrap of white paper
or sprig of green the outward symbols of
the hatred in their hearts
of fathers for sons, cousins for brothers...
sons for fathers, hatred
that tore each other apart.
VI
Perennial Battle of the Boyne births
hot flowers of hate,
homemade grenades bloom bloody blossoms
on Bóinne's anniversary date.
Traditional enemies making grenades in Sweet May
to throw at their brothers
marching again on July's hate-filled day
mock the tears of their Mothers
and Mothers' Mothers, unbroken over hundreds of years
as news of their mens' death
realized their worst fears.
VII
Brú Na Bóinne once had a monument
to those who died there,
but the monument was obliterated,
like the dead who there lie,
as an insult to the memory of the opposite
sides that fought
in July, Sixteen Ninety, over the thought
that to lose was to lose
property, clods of earth, sticks of furniture,
monuments for which
they were willing to die.
VIII
To Turtle Island came Beasts from the Boyne
with panoply, fanfare and guns,
dispossess the Indigenous Peoples of home,
culture, game, loved ones,
by murder, intimidation, kidnapping, rape,
legal chicanery,-- pure hate
of the Peoples who lived here,
where washed up on shore
the lowest individuals with complete lack of morals,
blood-shot eyes, gums bleeding
from weeks at sea, seething.
IX
Kanada is now over one hundred years old,
victors hoarding the spoils,
arrogant white men selling and buying
that which can't be owned,
a confederacy of arrogance,
a republic of lies,
steal Indigenous Peoples' souls and lives
and justify it arguing
it's been over a hundred years now,
time to get over it,
time to move on.
X
That was over a hundred years ago,
it's ancient history now.
Well, were Kookum alive she'd be one hundred seven
Dear Mother is seventy three.
She's had her entire childhood taken
by police and perverted priests
and now in the weeks before July Eleven
Ma and Pa over in Ardoyne
are making grenades
for another celebration of
Cáta Na Bóinne.
XI
Our Fathers, never to find heaven,
suffer agony in your name,
give all our days, our daily bread,
deliver to you our People,
worship your god, the author omniscient,
harbinger of evil,
leading you to temptation, you ravish the women,
kidnap the children,
make poorer the hungry, in the name of money
and power of a sordid, few, beastly,
white men.
No Land's Man
Long before the Dawn of Man
When the Creator made the Chipewyan
From the stubs of Sedna's hands
and the fish of the deep from her fingers,
Creator brought out of the deep
a mud-covered turtle on whose back
was formed the land of Turtle Island.
From the thick, rich mud on the turtle's back
grew the mountains, lakes, rivers and trees,
where the Human Beings lived their lives
and loved their families and children.
Turtle Island was no man's land,
no man's water, no man's air
but all belonged to all the creatures
living in the circle of life
followed by death which is the
necessary for the continuation of life.
Harsh laws but readily apparent
for every child knows that to be
born is to one day die.
The giant wheel turned and turned,
alternately fire then ice, birth and death,
season after season, the sun also rising
and wheeling around to
set and rise again, turn, turn, turn.
This way of life was called freedom,
to live and die without interference,
live and die as a free Human Being.
From the other side of the ocean
came men who set in motion
the destruction of the land of Turtle Island.
They sailed in great winged ships
over the deep on fantastic long trips
and circled the Earth with fire and destruction,
new tools and religions, diseases
and murderous intent.
These were the men who crucified their Lord
to see if he could live after dying
like he promised, vain hope! and stupid,
to fly in the face of all reason
and believe like a child one is special,
different from the rest while exactly the same,
one more drop of water, one more grain of sand.
Believed that belonging meant owning
and not being owned as we all are
owned by the circle of life and death,
That land could be owned
instead of being owned by
the forces of the Creation,
for is not the dust our feet stir
when we walk made of
bones and skin of our ancestors?
Who owns what? is the great question
that occupies the mind
of the greedy who want to have all
but do not even own their lives
but hold them in forfeit
to the Creator, and waste their lives
in bloody war and conquest
in order to own the world
and all that is in it.
How many pieces have you had
and are you gong to eat that fat?
Years pass, generations fly
and one day we wake and the conquistadors
had turned into enormous fat people,
eating, eating all that they could see,
so greedy that the Dakota call them wasicu,
the eater of the fat, fat eater, the man
who wants it all, all the best is what they say
to you, all the best, what they mean is
I want all the best, then all the rest,
White man took the best, left us in tiny
plots of land, plots like graves,
graves in fact is what they became,
it is where we died and were buried,
on the reserve, the res, put aside
and kept apart, from the food,
the good life, arrested if we were
caught off the reserve, carry a card
that says we are lawfully at large
in what was once No Man's Land,
we are now become No Land's Man,
homeless in our own home.
The Matelot in Old Age
Only the word very can describe how old
The Matelot was,
his dog matched him in age,
in war, The Matelot was like
keeping a lion to catch mice,
whatever happened to good old war?
The Viejo fought when a ship
would stand off and shell a city
with six-inch guns
from twenty-odd miles.
The miracle of childbirth
brought us the man
who was born a matelot
and volunteered at seventeen
to face gunshot and venture
the rest, The Matelot,
two men in a hammock
below deck was the way
they shipped common sailors
to their deaths, off Trondheim,
if a man hit the sea
there was no cry man overboard
you just watched him die.
The Matelot, of course he cried
an ocean of tears
in thirty two years of war
at sea. He rounded the world,
Montevideo, Honolulu, Wales,
where he was born.
The Matelot remembers
the instruments of war,
he was a gunner
six inches in the fantail,
sailor humour,
ack, ack, depth charges,
The Matelot was a marksman,
with pistol, rifle or gun
hit the firing pin on a mine
the entire boat entrusted
to the gunner's eye
or the entire boat
entrusted to the sea.
You see how The Matelot
was made to play the Hero
enough jacking off too
in thirty two years in the Navy.
Seen young boys turned to
men and blown away,
but shelling a city
doesn't spare children
or the babies
and the women
The Matelot so passionately loved.
The Military Life
two or three bars on your sleeve
are what you've got
to show for thirty two years
that and the medals
and the metal they used
rebuilding his back
after he broke it
boarding a sub
off that damned Trondheim!
Quisling! Appeasing those Nazis!
The Matelot was killing Germans
when he was seventeen.
Much of his life was war.
The rest of his life he gave over to love.
Beverly was his first love,
a rare beauty,
they fell madly in love
in the back of a
Clydesdale-drawn
beer wagon on the way
to a Communist rally
the schoolgirl let herself
be jostled against The Matelot
who caught her arm
and said "hang onto me"
and she did until she
married his enemy.
So ended his first life
with his first wife,
the lovely Beverly
the love of The Matelot's life.
He healed, he didn't seem cut
that deep so he married again.
She was dead before thirty
isn't this pretty
of smoking
The Matelot's Navy Cuts.
The Matelot fought in
the Atlantic, Pacific and North Seas,
- saw many young men
many he called friends
put down before the end of the day,
time to die now
there is no reason
why a bullet
flies into one and not another
but chance and luck
and sometimes the pluck
to just run into danger
and face Death away.
The Matelot became
an excellent mariner
Chief Warrant Officer
in Her Majesty's Navy
a cap for a crown
changed from white
to white hair
on his crown
and forgetting all
except his navy years.
The Ancient Matelot
and his faithful Shih Tzu
tottering both down the street.
The women they meet
young and old all stop to greet
The Matelot and his Taffy
the puppy does more
thinking than he
but The Matelot
can't finish remembering
the years of his life
on the sea.
Yo ho ho and away we go!
All hail The Matelot!
Running with The Matelot!
He's been to places the Lord only knows!
Land Ho! cries The Matelot!
Late at night he lays down his head of snow,
as he falls into sleep
his bed gently rocks
with the rhythm of the deep.
Born The Matelot, a Great Warrior
the ancient Mariner, Scourge of the Sea,
his guns turned the water red,
filled sailors' women's hearts with dread
that their men would meet
The Matelot on the deep
dirty job but someone has to do it
Man that water is cold
and deep!
Pray the Lord my
soul to keep
when men wager their
souls on the deep,
profound and awesome,
life and death incarnate
Mother Ocean swells
and lifts a two-hundred-ton ship
and men on her bosom
so it seems she is a solid thing
and not an illusion
that swallows sailors
like the sky swallows a bird,
arms flapping like wings
farther and farther away.
Greek Fire, men burned and roasted
before the sinking ship, water boiling,
steam and smoke rising, then
fire boils and the ice cold sea
crushes the boat beneath her weight
before it implodes, exploded,
fills and sinks into the abyss,
world without end.
The Matelot is nearly eighty-seven,
seventy years since he went to sea
a boy at war
doing a man's job of killing
punishment of a criminal nation
for crimes against humanity
by committing crimes against humanity.
War at sea goes slow, slow,
Nelson sailed into the Battle of Trafalgar
at five knots and at the end of his life
called for The Matelot, kiss me,
as he lay dying, shot through the groin,
the decks slippery with blood and brains and bone,
spyglass by his side, sightless, both eyes gone blind,
down among the dead men,
Poseidon, Sedna, Triton
dispose of the corpses
that Ares and Mars
harvest from the men who
venture their lives upon the deep.
Go to sleep my child, go to sleep,
it's shallow water.
The Tree Of Knowledge
I
I ate the fruit from the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
More succulent than the fruit of the Tree
of Knowledge of Ignorance and Bliss.
The juice of the fruit of the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil
ran down my chin staining the front
of my shirt so all could see that
which was clearly writ on my face,
namely fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.
II
I then ate fruit from the Tree
of Knowledge of Life and Death.
More bitter than the fruit of the Tree
of Knowledge of Love and Loss.
The juice of the fruit of the Tree
of Knowledge of Life
Stained my bedsheets in the night,
and stole the comfort of my sleep
so all could see in the whites of my eyes
knowledge of the Tree of Death and Life.
III
Then was I cast out of the Garden of Eden
my soul on consignment to Hell
at night wandering the streets on the East Side of Eden
roiling remorseful in my bed all next day,
mental sheet lightning flashing dimly-lit episodes
on the plate of my drug-addled brain
of staggering down skid-row at night in the rain
importuning the hookers who long ago ate of
the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Pain,
lay their lives under scum for the most meager of gains.
IV
One cannot live on a strict diet of low-hanging fruit;
from the Tree of Good, Evil, Life, Death, Love or Loss,
nor can one survive on a diet of Pain alone
one needs a thick spread of some sorrow,
a confit of regret, marmalade of horror
at words and actions committed while not sober;
you could murder someone if drunk enough
and not have knowledge of doing so on the morrow,
to flee the scene naked save a grape leaf to cover
the fruit of your knowledge of the Tree of Good and Evil.
Free Verse
Outside, looking in, the only place an artist can be, the friendship others feel to each other seems so dear and precious, until the demands of friends are made clear, what little time is vouchsafed to finish what is clearly the reason we are here; to work, perhaps to create one, single work that justifies the air we breathe, space we take up, shit we make.
Anonymous, the mass grave, forgotten, useful only as cannon fodder and later as fertilizer, rotting flesh and bone nutrients for the poppies to blow red. Loneliness, sitting alone in a room of people, avoiding their eyes, furtively watching for that which is prototypically human, and therefore perhaps beautiful.
A dark man in a room full of white -- feared and hated at sight -- ostracized and ridiculed, dispossesed and marginalized, what course left but to work with your hands?
Untitled
What are you looking at Whiteman?
Haven't you ever seen an Indian before?
You glare your hatred at my face
without even knowing my name.
Where did you get this ridiculous idea
that you're intrinsically better than me?
For the sole reason of your sickly pale skin
and the hateful blank look on your face.
Veni, vidi, vici the perfect neighbour
looks over the fence
and covets your wife
your home,
your ass,
your life,
before planting a flag and taking outright
at the point of a sword,
blade of a knife,
or barrel of a gun
for as long
as the grass may grow
and the rivers may run.
Arrogant Whiteman!
Why can't you see
you're the laughing stock of the world
and when you're out of the room
trying to make right
with your might,
when something stupid is accomplished
everyone asks "was he white?"
Oh arrogant Whiteman!
Sitting in the white citadel of your white cranium,
the white skin on your face flushed with hate.
Furrowed brows,
mouth locked in a frown
or knowing smile,
have a nice day!
Icy blue eyes,
icy blue heart pumping
icy blue blood through
icy blue veins.
Starry Night
If I read the
Hubble Ultra Deep Field
correctly
the only star we can readily see with the naked eye is the sun.
Almost all the others we see in the starry night sky are galaxies.
In our Milky Way, a medium-sized galaxy, there are between 100-400 billions suns.
1 million seconds pass in 12 days.
1 billion seconds take 32 years to pass.
400 billion seconds pass in 1 trillion 200 million years.
Astronomy posits an age of between 9 and 20 billion years for the universe.
Light travels at 300,000,000 meters per second, c=300,000,000. e=mc2.
We are all, right now, hurtling through space at nearly the speed of light.
Look at all the different coloured galaxies. Which colour do you think is better?
Genocide
"The Contracting Parties,
Having considered the declaration made by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its resolution 96 (I) dated 11 December 1946 that genocide is a crime under international law, contrary to the spirit and aims of the United Nations and condemned by the civilized world,
Recognizing that at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity, and
Being convinced that, in order to liberate mankind from such an odious scourge, international co-operation is required,
Hereby agree as hereinafter provided:
Article 1
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- (a) Killing members of the group;
- (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article 3
The following acts shall be punishable:
- (a) Genocide;
- (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
- (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
- (d ) Attempt to commit genocide;
- (e) Complicity in genocide."
As is holding a referendum on ability of Coast Salish individuals to govern themselves and also other indigenous individiuals of British Columbia. Arrogance of the question. But first, one by one, A., this is easy to follow:
"The Contracting Parties,
Having considered the declaration made by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its resolution 96 (I) dated 11 December 1946 that genocide is a crime under international law, contrary to the spirit and aims of the United Nations and condemned by the civilized world,
Recognizing that at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity, and
Being convinced that, in order to liberate mankind from such an odious scourge, international co-operation is required,
Hereby agree as hereinafter provided:
Article 1
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish."
Point about Article 1 follows:
At the least the Contractng Parites undertake to prevent Genocide as defined by one or several of the items in Article 2. Touché.
So, point by point, Article 2 and thoughts that follow.
Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: The Cree in case they stand in the way of your ownership of the country, or Nisga'a. as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
When has the crown ever killed a member of an Indigenous Nation? Everyone knows the Beothuk were exterminated by other Indigenous People. As were the damn Huron. Iriquois Tribe did them. Bunch of iriquois. Every damn last Huron or thereabouts. To the sword or arrow. Shining skulls gleaming white bone.
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; When has an Indigenous individual in Canada ever endured a beating at the hands of a representative of the Crown? Even in Saskatoon? Or Vancouver? How many Crack Ho's have to disappear before an investigation starts? Drunken police officers sitting around a table on Friday night wondering if they should do something about the disappering prostitutes on the Downtown Eastside until 55 women are missing and pigs are getting fat at Willie's Pig Farm. Put some pork on your fork Vancouver. Stepped into the mind of a serial killer for a brief instant. But what is the difference between Sand Creek and Willie's Pig Farm, except Sand Creek was performed by a Reverened? What mental harm can come to the only Indian boy at an all-white Elementary School?
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
This was the object of the Indian Act and the treaties of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Break up the buffalo hunters on tiny Reserves until they starve while the American Civil War Veterans exterminate the Buffalo in the Great Plains and Gabriel Dumont and Louis Riel weep with Big Bear and Poundmaker before setting out to seek justice, before putting their necks in the rope, Reil literally put his neck in the rope, in what the Elders at Kawacatosse call the War, the only War, the last real War when a scalped man stumbled into Great Grand Fathers tent to die by the fire, shining, red, dome, bone, the round of his head, the round of his eyes, white, shining tissue where his scalp used to be.
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Involuntary sterilization? Take your womb out?
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Adopting out? Would you like to lose your children at 6 to a Residential School to be bum-fucked by a priest? Mary Mother of God, no fucking way! My son in his hands?! Yet the RCMP drove all over Kawacatoose looking for children to shave their heads and pop into Residential School. At least they were among their friends. Thank God for Beethoven or I would be dead ages ago.
Article 3
The following acts shall be punishable:
- (a) Genocide;
- (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
- (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
- (d ) Attempt to commit genocide;
- (e) Complicity in genocide.
Sorry goes a long way. At least it's an admission of sorts. That's enough of that. I get the last word. Let's get along. Just don't make it look expensive.
© 2008 Norman Fournier.