national sea products limited
locks the ocean to our beds each night,
chains bitter-keen winds to our hearts,
batters us with wrecking storms and debt
until our wives complain
we are cold to touch.
to forget the ocean and wind,
we read our futures in rum.
to abandon the debits and our wives
we land like fish, their carragheen nipples
quivering,
we go to a charmless chapel
of birch benches and hard sermons
and take our burdens to the Lord.
yet, no bread and wine set our tables,
only rations of flour and hog.
ah, national sea products limited
shackles the deeps to our eyes,
clamps the storm-winds to our ears,
fetters us to death by water
or by exposure to banks and trusts.
micmac windpoems sing
Spring's resurrection,
foretold by the sharp, fused fragrance
of jubilee roses,
and the appearance of shiny, new
blue cars of waves,
cruising the beaches.
knowing this sensual verse,
we ensure fertility.
we prepare a path through the wilderness.
we prepare the Easter Sunrise Service:
blue-grass banjo jamborees,
sepia saints in ivory robes, and the flash
of fish, flapping and flopping,
at the hooked close of a gossamer line
of predatory poetry.
we prepare the way of the Lord.
we who work steel, who
are cold and hard as steel,
who stumble in storms of smoke and blown ash,
like penitent sinners,
to and from gloomy, holy taverns,
have eaten of Circe's sweet lotus,
have broken the young buds of breasts.
we have seen warm, virginal water run bloody
from flesh firm as solid stone:
we know the honey in that rock.
we have eaten of the lily,
and felt the world kick in our loins,
Lethe surge in our veins.
we know greenhouses of women
bearing sugared yams of children
for the slavemarkets of this world.
why berate the sable night?
why run about, fiery with love,
howling at the frigid moon?
it is futile.
why walk dark dartmouth
forest paths dreaming of a little
red riding girl to possess?
it is vanity.
why watch the heavens for a sign
of a coming messiah-paramour
who will love you fang for claw,
measure for measure?
no sign will be given.
do not lose faith; wait; endure
unto the end and you will be saved.