Woke up to a slight flu, enough to spend the day languishing round the house til mid-afternoon, when a timid knock at the back door announced Fatima, my neighbour, who had come to ask if I had grape leaves to spare. Fatima has been harvesting my leaves for a few seasons now, and I’ve become…
Author: prairiepomes
Writer, gardener, hopeful curmudgeon, free-range Aboriginal, lover of life, Poet Laureate of Edmonton 2011-13, traveller, Fifth World Drummer.
Camino Edmonton
My friend Astrid did something remarkable this year, in company with some remarkable folks. Read her story here: via Camino Edmonton
When The Way Seems Long
When the way seems long, or any burden heavy, we have songs Witness how love and courage lift and reweave the broken strands Ue O Muite Arukou, by Kyu Sakamoto, was a huge hit in 1961, and the English version – ridiculously titled ‘Sukiyaki,’ which is a bit like translating, for example, Unchained…
One: sort of a review of Stewart Copeland’s Ben Hur, but really a run on, excitable meditation on music, fandom, family; a cacophonous riot, wherein complexity matters, but never overrules the sheer bombastic roar…
I bought Zenyatta Mondatta with my own money, back when I was a kid, and albums were at thing, and we were that family – openly ‘halfbreed’ and forever under suspicion, building salt enough to resist the constant grinding. I had to have it. It was weird. It fit. I was embarrassed by these guys,…
Weasel in the Cern Reactor
once upon a time star woman did not listen she looked down too far and fell through a hole in the sky muskrat, a tiny person dived below the waters brought her home now, upon this time earthbound men seek under a mountain range to harness that particle they call god and…
Reflection: St. Eugene, 2019
“We’re selling an opportunity to understand our history, to know our people and to share our vision of turning a 60-year nightmare around. We’re creating new memories for our children.” – Ktunaxa Chief Sophie Pierre St. Eugene is a former Indian Residential School, which has been made over into a resort, complete with casino and…
Do Not Send
Do not send the poets to build your mighty streets for we will follow stream’s meander and bend aside for the cities of ants. Do not send the poets to clean your house for we are apt to pause, enraptured by the fall of dust through light, and sing ‘o, there am i, o there…
Hunger Lounge: from 30/30 2019
in tame, cemented days like these ensconced in automated ease ah, what a gift again to see hunger, lounging in a tree all tawny bright, not quite replete yet not so fraught as seeking meat would make this golden beast ah, what a gift of joy to dream of your, instead of siren’s scream your…
Free – Graffiti6: Song Review, Years Later
Free running that bass up my spine while Jamie sings, heart in throat and the bells pulling i believe, falling, i believe “…hard to breathe when you’re not near” every one you ever loved walks streets and alleys full of young people seeking something inarticulate “I can’t live, oh, without you” and the city and the…
Potato Soul
it’s hard to cook potatoes at a certain time of year, they sag and wrinkle, all eyes, lustful surging outward, turning green if soul is a potato, how to judge? when to cook, when to save who’s greening for the renewal Image from Sewell family archives, circa 1974, north of Valhalla.
Listening to Snatam Kaur
and if you could not sing for me i would seek the song of strangers rather than live silenced and if you desired to sing for me but your words were taken i would learn the songs of strangers and sing you new words and if you would sing with me these songs,…
