I

1

in Choate Road
a car stalled
underneath the bridge i
pass over
another fragment

water spill
the frozen spume of
the river
                      runs thru Port Hope
into

winter storm across the lake's imperfect ice
blue gaps in the clouds & snow
older worlder order
o der wrld er wrl o
inchoate world

2

life like lake like
                              line
                                        lingers
a dream of
ocean and
pacific one i was born by
bounded in that first family
superior as the other shore
crossing the land bridge between
ocean-going vessels streaming into
both ports i
was there
                    sea to sea
all i needed was
to let the water take me
home

3

i was taught it as
their history
                          but it made sense:

1 if by land
                          (you can make it on foot)
2 if by sea
                          (i need
a boat
                    to carry me
                                            OUT
                                                                THERE

4

water music

two rivers
winding thru

Winnipeg

ocean & lake

what our music
                            our poems come
down to
                    the sea in

'everything gives way &
nothing stays fixed'

'the river shines
between the villages'

two translations

see how they wind
this way & that

this name or
another

                    tracking me

5

'for other waters are
continually flowing on'

                                            & other songs

emptying out

spring into stream into river into lake into
ocean
          'n ocean 'n
                            ocean
                                      'n ocean 'n
                                                        ocean
                                                                  'n ocean 'n
                                                                                    ocean

6

in Choate Road
the cars go by
exhaust blue
late january frost

i thot the water spill
a broken mill
going too fast &
couldn't quite connect it

the image

& beyond that
the town &
beyond that the lake &
beyond that

7

this is the world

not these words

not this poem

this is the world

II

1

snow out the window's light
glimmer's outline
ships, a bay
(anchored)

across this page
a light moves
in the water's now
wet blackness of the street
empty stretches snowy beach
reach as far as i can see into the darkness around this bay

window's prairie sky
empty hole dug
makes a pond the city will not let them put water in &
then the tree 'n trees
mark the twisting course of

these lines stretch across a country   a life   snow falls   birds &
i grow older with every word
every liquid gesture flows from this blue pen   watermarks
mark time
my life by
the side of
this bodies these

2

beginning with lead & wood
mark the course of this writing's later
ink as the words begin to flow

late   rink lights coming on
shouts of the kids on the frozen water &
later   th'aw
flooding spring
hot stretches of summer
falls
          ice/water
          ice/water
          ice

3

pigeons on the track, a rack
ing cough ing
breath's frozen face

mouth of the assiniboine/red
(river)(brick)(engine of the train)
under the bridge the birds
nest along the top ledge of
abandoned factory across the river to
St Boni face to face
with memory at the mere's edge
more'n merely water goes

out into the other alphabets these

(seen from the plane) those

rivers
                strokes of
pens together in the plain
words     dried ink     dyes
strained thru     books
the stain of thinking
the rivers the
type we were
down at the mouth
where the two come together
watching our breath
lines of trees
track across the river tracks we was
thinking of writing
vast expanse of white twisting no

4

not so much that but this

not so much then but now

not so much beginnings but beginning

again's a gain

a river arrive
air ver-y cold &

the drift

under the stillness
the silent stretches
a current accrues
air collide us

not so much the river but the riven
moment (more meant to you than

then this

5

out window the light
damned width of the river's length
twists thru the mountains
clouds     just below the tops
twist too the two
wind thru &
                            the river's
ever varied very song the
birds & the snow & the
very hush of the damned world goes
dawn & on     ocean     river
                    lake     stream

i was in river

i was lost in lake

i was caught in the twist &
toss in the water

                            (essential pull
                            these pools
                            perception
falls

all's a damn now
a pulsated
full)

o
  'n tary
o
  'n hurry
o
  'linger

  (so that these rhythms are established
  closure (details -- what we call a
  theme) globular, returning, the
  circumnavigation of
  the work/world
o)

  'cean 'n stay
o
  'n go
o-ke-an-o
winds thru the poem the
words say slower & slower the
eaupen measure of

(i stood at the end of o & e

a u (au - 'to') the translation where
e goes in these
l'eau countries

6

in the snow world
slowed wheels rumble
the heaped flow of the crystals grow
around us
white's white shift
slips thru the hung trees
line the slopes of these mountain valleys &
we drift on as the snow mounts
higher climbing
towards an imagined top or ridge
entrances the cloud world hid
to the fall now
thru snow, white clouds
the world be/l'eau

7

o eau (eaucean)

o world (lake
river, path the vowels take
to the sea)

eau io
i 'nvoke you
sometimes

                      why?

o beginning gaining
vision of the water
births you int'
o

          wave of speech
sound sine g

s-ing
          ing
                    mouther
sonne
                    farther

INK o it
!whirl!

8

giggle mesh

looking for the place the puns flesh out
the body of speech is
re vealed, the veil
drops away
the dance!
sheer ecstasy of glimmering
part icicles part airy
nothingnessence
flow of grammar hammers in
my chest, the breath's pressed OUT
quick liquid spout of
the wait:
THOT
              a kind of harbour or
land
and m and no
places the eyes rest
flat/calm/march/day
- still snow still -
(did i expect it to blow away?)
_____________________________

      pair of dice
      -adox
      pay the price &
      get your change

      'do you have exact change?'
      i can only approximate
_____________________________
vapour

how the words (the selves) twist
every chance you take

water
watair

                    (dew
                                dawn
                    deer on the lawn below me
                    river rushes &
                    clouds &

                                        (water rodes
                                        the passes: the
                                        rocks & twists of
                                        river bubbling up from
                                        earth falling
                                        emptying out (somewhere)
                                        beyond

                                                                  water
int'
          a i 'r
o

III

river riven

wandering the length up & down
when was it i
_____________________________
                        quoted myself
                        into the world

1

word'l get you world

flood of feeling

when the river
overflows its banks
mudder
                  no fodder now

floating away in a boat from the house
Winnipeg 1950
that fall we nailed a donkey to the wall
just below the window on the second floor
to mark how high the water'd risen

flood was the word i learned
& rain & river, water
drove me out of my world
mother/father
into another

2

ech-

eau

vo-cab-u-lar-y

diction airy or
at best suspect

flood

mud

(wreck

row)

two rivers known
two more as the summer comes & goes

Red Assiniboine
Saskatchewan Bow

wryme

old wyrm
ouroboros

i-row-ny
(set out in a pun t'
cross this
sudden sea)

3

the trick is to know the depth always
& that the surface'll get you there

the flood'll bring the bottom to the top

spins & the spinner marks the spot
the line drops down

the hook's only visible when
you get more than your feet wet

4

rhy-
wry thm
       theme

two in-
separable
tune

leer ich
(sneer 'i')

trance forms
within you (around you)

dusk rain on the harbourfront
from the café chair
gulls gulled
i am engulfed, flooded with
même mer, 'e says, or
the same more 'e
experienced be-
fore

feelings flow
like a river
the river flowed
like a river at flood tide
watch the lake rise
rainy august night
or maybe ordinary
like a jewel eye
glittering in a real face
sudden surprise of the place
the distraction of resemblances

- in land sea
- under ground river
- fire water
- air stream

wa of birth
      of water
          waltz

wan
        (one

                (singular ich's istence))

                                                      along a rain-pocked river
                                                      across the rain-pocked lake

sea

be	{	gan gins
a		gain

                air ' rain
                'n a trance later
two in one
wanders the flood
plain

5

among the bushes
the brush the
rushes the
different rivers i followed the courses of
- Assiniboine, Red, Seine, Neebing, McIntyre, Kaministiqua -
some i knew the proper names of
we called them all 'the river'
            ________________________
              heading upstream
              tracking the beaver dams
              flooded bush
              collecting bullrushes for
              my mother     fell
              full face in the mud
            ________________________
            _________________________________________
              slow meander of sludge brown water swam in
              shit drifting by
              sewage from the towns lay south of us
            _________________________________________

learned those names for water
(sky aspect - storm -
intermixed with elemental fire
the sign for 'loud noise')
understood the local & the universal
but moved too often to make the local my own

i was born from water
bore me away from home
again & again after i was born

6

'i should've been a sailor'

wasn't

7

the contradiction is
to spend your life on land
trance fixed in
the sea

contra the diction is
the land wage
(when the water comes
- sea pun - you pay a
price)
          pays

                    flood

                    flawed

                    flowed

                              (how you move from
                              imperfection to imperfection in
                              the world)

my body is water
my life is water
                            ich
                      eau ech
                      eau
                      eau

8

ink eau
ate world

our obra is
the water works
hydro electric

tide ties me in this flux
the surface   change is
constantly

when the flood receded
i saw we'd lived
under the sea
all those years

i never saw it til
water covered me
clouds blew by
sea 'n
folds of fields appeared in air
i saw the saints there
& here &

i think in ink
particle charged airs
hum
            anity
    in
            anity
            an ity world a
pen opens
floods over me

i write from the bottom of a see
step out upon the surface
poetic feet give me access to
stare cases
& where that leads me
floods the white plain page is
ground/sea/sky

                            inchoate world
                                          words

seaquence

                  'the way', we say,
                  'the letters lie'

EPILOGUE

35,000 feet above Saskatchewan
less than a foot between me &
all that air, these airs err
insubstantial as comparison
spots to which we come, position ourselves
heirs to the veaucabulairies
terror that fires us
all gollems finally
someone marks our foreheads
four elements there
                                  we lurch forward
enact tradition
                              monstrously
familiar
                    familheir
tri bull
                labyrinthinemine
a tour of
gnossos
logos
osos
        (o that s.o.s. of
consciousgnoss)

or that old question
'who's the boss?' (b.s.   os)

minos most of our memory
we function out of loss
amigos

                    unless i've got a pun
i can't write it down

ink think

'is that what you mean by procoss?'
(harbour lights
th'arbor of masts &
sails off the edge of your world     a view
venue     sTREEtS
lower&upper
middle voice/tongue/world)
i mean the earthyear the puns get the more the pen can pin it down to

Pan plays the world 'pon his flute

old bullfoot amazes us
pipes bright as language

                                      sleepy giants
who will wake you
mourn your death &
dance your resurrection

                                    dreaming world
(the rivers branch like
trees
                  someone's always leaving

(catch in the voice the
ship

                  water water water you
                  doing?

(meme eau: i'm just looking at the sea 'n world
                                                                          (eauver & eauver))
something fishy when the tongue slips

(glimmering surface
invisible depths
across which the boats skip)

'I'll write you a letter'
(A to A))

giant talk

the long waged war
the fight or struggle for
the mind
              boarders in these rooms words open

i said that be you said that be we said that be they said that be

FORE

warned