Benjibopper

All through this room
images of you
abounding in shadows of flowers
a riverbed stream
where you held a righteous dream
and picked me sumac
to while away the hours

The puppets come to life
dancing before me
tracing our paths
to another lifetime

When we owned the world
and our pride stole it away
it was then we were freed
in the arms of each other
casting shadows on a green wall
two figures in the thralls of love

Looking up to you
you see my S-shaped arms
sketching in a sketchbook
the artwork on our walls
no this life’s not our first together
not likely our last

Children on your t-shirt
make a future of the past
this room smells of you
your skin on my mind
your skin all over me

You are the one
who freed me from time

Labels: love junk, Poetry

If you could change your mind
you could change the way you live
You say I make a difference
but the pay is shit
If only I could show you
the way I live
you might change your mind
and change the way you live

You squashed a spider
smiled and apologized
for inflicting such cruelty
on my environmentalist eyes
'It's ok to make your space,' I said
'it's the 200 species we wiped out today,
those losses are what really hurt'
You shrug as if these 200 species aren't you

If you could change your mind
there'd be some kinda reason to hope
If you could dream other ways to live
If you could see the beautiful imperfection
of we human things and our potential
to end cynicism about our own nature
If you could let go of that excuse and innovate
With your talent paradise might welcome us home

If we could change our minds
we could leave this destructive way behind
We could change the way we live
We could give back to the gods
what is rightfully theirs
We could forge a new path
following the curve of the earth
If you could change your mind

Labels: 2007, nova scotia, Poetry, politics

Hi folks,

I'll be reading from the novel I've been working on at this years Canzine Festival, this Saturday (Oct 20) at 3:30 pm, in St. David's Church Hall on Brunswick St (adjacent to the library, across the road from Steve O' Reno's), in Halifax. If you can make it out I'd much appreciate the cheering section. For more info about canzine see http://halifaxpopexplosion.com/hpx07/?page_id=7.

Hope to see you there.

-BB

Labels: subway novel

I was throwing out some punches
in Riviere-du-Loup
replacing pain with pain
I was just passing through

I was headed westward
for that phallus in the sky
of course I got busted
thrown in jail to get dry

Passed out on the concrete
sleeping rough again
this my latest tailspin
me and 60 other men

the worst thing about it is
this song is all a lie
all except the drinking part
so I forget to cry

I ain't ever been no where
outside of Halifax
got nobody but my parents
and they don't want me back

And if I died tonight
on the streets of this cold town
my social worker'd id me
'cause there's no one else around

No I don't need your sympathy
and I don't mean to complain
but the world has abandoned me
and my hopes run through your drain

You say that I'm a burden
my own worst enemy
that may just be true but
who has been a friend to me?

Labels: Fiction, Poetry

I am a rare and dying breed
I am the oppressor with a conscience
colonial man erected and fully realized
educated at your expense
fully aware of all I've done to you

Let me stand under your gavel and be judged
Let me make my confession on your turf
but because I'm so isolated
honesty is all I can really offer
my meek apology represents only myself

Perhaps you thought I was of the majority
but only the global majority understands me
my fellow oppressors only shake their baffled heads
like I'm some medicine man selling snake oil cures
to afflictions they don't know they have

My words bounce from their chain-mail
like rootless green plants with no market
they don't accept me as one of their own
anymore than you my victims do
this is the price I pay for consciousness

"It's the price you pay for privilege
for stolen lands waters and graves"
I'm told by acestors and murdered ghosts
but had I never surrendered my profits
I'd still be living comfortably now

I'd be surrounded by my fellow oppressors
drinking blood and eating flesh
until heavy sleep lands on us
There'd be no time to hear our victims
we'd be too busy re-writing the laws

but my foolish conscience caught me
and now this once proud virus
must beg for mercy like a common thief
in the vain hope you'll recruit me
to be a mole in the upper echelons

I'l accept whatever fate you offer
It seems I have little choice
but before you pass your judgement
know I am a rare and dying breed
I am the oppressor and the oppressed

Labels: 2007, nova scotia, Poetry, politics

Hi folks,

I'm off to Trana for a wedding; be back in a week or two, depending on various unknown factors. I leave you with a little political poem:



Paper Cuts

Let me wrap myself in this
warm blanket of cynicism
and curse you for these cuts
that you say aren't really cuts
when you consider the bottom line

After you slash the creative veins
of the arts
after you slice the walls
of small enterprise
after you jab at the women
struggling for equality
after you lop off the end
of this joint
the one that kept my eyes clear
and the pain of disease at bay

You know the disease I'm talking about
It's the disease of your corporate tax cuts
for the greatest polluters
and changers of climate
for the ones who sold Killex to my neighbour after
manufacturing his obsession with uniform grass
It's a more manageable kind of grass
if you kill everything in its path
including my poor nervous system

What benefits we could have had
from the other more chaotic grass
we'll never know because you
cut that research too
and the kind that could have got me
real justice like
the original inhabitants once knew

I curse you for your cynical fiscal butchery
and shake under my blanket
of cold hard rage

Labels: Poetry, politics