from The Fire Passage

34.

Pilgrim, have you lately asked
what am I for?

To what purpose should I apply this borrowed corpus?

I desired to write a history of the wound
but it is.

We used to gather at the rim to weep into the crater.
Not filling it was the point.

mecum omnes plangite

for the old gods demoted to idols
in the drive toward unification.

Turned out I’d given my life to something too small.
Bilked by the bad pastor who asked
Which master do you serve?

Answer.
I served a derivative daddy-type.

Control was the chief delusion.
Numbed-out in managing
total compliance to the incursive agenda.

Went along to get along
and the hand that wounded me was my own.



38.

We will greet, on the road to Tar Sands, a man
of myriad chattering heads—addicted
to the freebased recremental whee of implosion.

Who has, for an opponent,
the meeting of middle-class reformists.

Are you waiting for the thrill jockey to get his fill
and climb down off us?

          He will never get his fill.
          He will never climb down off us.

Just ask the kids at Fort Mac
          where threshers undo
       the true name of Lake Athabasca.

Forgone, that we were all accomplice
          but it’s not too late to turn
          if you want to

cool your heels here on Earth.




Reprinted from The Fire Passage (Four Way Books, 2025) with the permission of the poet.