---

Something like angels in abandoned Packards
Like frightened teenager in the back-seat
Of a James Dickey poem, about to experience
Sex for the first time, something like Dylan's
Long meandering song about Brownsville Girl
Way down in Mexico

Something that will cast a spell on schoolyard
Bullies who hunt
down innocent kids and make them pay

This is what I'm thinking about:
How to write something that will
Take back some of the money from
Professional athletes and give it to teachers,
Daycare workers, homeless people,
Street kids, give more land back to 1st Nations people

Nothing incredible, mind you, just a poem
That will change the collective unconscious,
That will tip the critical mass, make the
Headline news, flash across the ocean
Attract the attention of Hollywood

Just a skinny little poem like Robert Creeley
Or William Carlos Williams, something
With no more plot than a Virginia Woolf
Stream-of-consciousness novel, something
That acknowledges the existential darkness
Like Beckett does, just simple repetition
Like Gertrude Stein

Almost Zen, maybe just a welded bell
A broken vase, my kid's snot
You know, Prince George's poor economy
Empty houses, people leaving, no jobs
Discontent with any government

A serious poem about all those people
Victimized by residential schools
By evangelists in any country
A poem about language and how someone
In power can oppress someone without
Linguistic skills, a poem full of images
Of owls & salmon, broke treaties & bibles

A poem of brown hands and bright eyes
Where Wilbur gets back into the Packard
An angle turns over the rusted engine
Headlights cut through smoggy twilight
He drops it into gear, his teeth are fixed

The car tumbles slow-motion up the em-
Bankment the radio comes on & people
Move back into their houses, jobs

And, like Zen, ring welded bells in silent
British Columbian snow, watch the tail-end
Of something dragon-dark turn around
Like a poem about Beowulf, like a
Sword retrieved from Arthurian stone, a myth
About light halving darkness

As the Packard pulls out of the graveyard
Behind the crumbling shed,
Wilbur nods to Dylan, Dylan winks to
Ginsberg who nudges Allan Watts;
James Dickey & Wendell Berry wink;
Virginia adjusts her scarf, whispers to
Foucault who interrupts the nacreous
Dialogue between Tim Findlay
& Jung. Wilbur is after everyone's
Attention, seeks agreement so he can

Cross the border, down into big Brother's
Territory, break the Berlin wall; Wilbur's
Driving towards George W. Bush's big white
House with high beams on & radio set to
International frequency, has a long white
Scroll which is busily being scribbled into
document form by the notorious back-seat
Felons who are all concurring frantically

When a battered red pick-up pulls
In front of them & Gar Snyder holds up
His enormous, wise hand,
Screeches Wilbur's bulging Packard
To a dusty halt
And gestures into being an instant
Campfire, introduces speakers from the
Dolphin-nation, Grizzly & Red Hawk, Squirrel
& White-pine, Sequoia and Redwood;
Russell Means arrives along with many

Mid-represented spokes-women from the
First Nations, and they gesticulate &
Warble through half the night.

Prince George is, sadly, unrepresented
So I am thinking about a raw poem
Maybe about a voice from the wilderness
Which will be shaped like a Packard,

Something which has been rolled
Down an embankment, but with the
Aid of angels, will carry a northern message
All the way own to the White House

Right into the dooryard of Double-You,
the new spokes-puppet
Of the World.

As the campfire dwindles, and the conclave
Condenses, the Packard rolls through
The inner-city, past drug-dealers &
Prostitutes, low-cost family housing projects
Fallen forests, drive-by shootings, high-
School massacres, past broken treaties &
Punks, rappers & skate-boarders,
Cardboard shantytowns & archangels,
Past last-minute vote-counters
Smack-dab into the driveway of America's
Hopes & Dreams.

Wilbur nervously steps out of the Packard
Clears his throat & knocks.
A door as big as a welded bell
Creaks open & standing before Wilbur
Is the son of a man identical to
His long-lost twin!

Who stammers? Each.
Who understands it all? Neither.
Who invokes the angels? Both.

Wilbur steps through the door.
It closes. Who is sitting outside
In the Packard while this conference
Hems & haws behind the door?
You & I.

Who has their answer
Before the dawn? Dolphin, White-pine,
Russell Means, you & I.

Dylan will return to his Never-Ending Tour
Leonard Cohen will go on sitting Zazen
Teeth & cars atrophying, economy
Ping-ponging, bullies bullying
Poems about rust, daffodils, Hercules
& stillness creeping out around the

Graves of our fathers as well collectively
Inch into yet another Packard-slow
Millennium.

Wilbur glanced, only once
Into the rear-view mirror and
Headed her home.

---

Life In The Sardonic Lane

by Rob Ziegler

 

Our annual
jay-walking contest is
over for this winter

& those americans
are grabbin'
everything in sight;

these events aside
life plods on despite
evidence to the contrary

& me &
everybody else
I know

await with jaundiced
breath
the brief crocus.

---

Perfection

by Rob Ziegler