Long Canoes Poems

Randomling 1:  Matthew Macfadyen

I believe I'm in love with Matthew Macfadyen
He inspires in me a terribly bad yen
But as poetry goes
His name 'spires woes
Cause nothing rhymes with "Macfadyen”.


Randomling 2: Birthday Wishes
  
For my birthday,...

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Suddenly, two Indian boys throw themselves into the water like meteors
swiming towards camp chatty as prarie dogs,
they hail from a Teton encampment of 74 lodges a few miles up river
most of the men are feeling...

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Poet's Pre-Notes: A poem from my 8th week in a Stanford continuing education class offered on the internet, a study of free verse and structure. The poem writing technique is to write as unconsciously as...

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Christ!
A warparty of 60 Shoshone warriors has just stampeded into the meadow
faces painted red and white for blood and death, all sorts of strange designs,
bows and arrows ready to fly on us, skull breaking cudgels...

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What remains 
when gratitude for learning
totally evaporates?

I don't know...
Totalitarian senility, maybe?
I guess I don't understand
the source of your question, dear.
Do you feel less grateful for learning
than in more formative years?

No, I don't
but I sense younger...

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"I Would Be....WOOD"


   "Knock On Me!" or more correct "Knock On WOOD!" You've probably said that and rapped your knuckles against me while saying it! I know you've knocked on me many times...

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Land Is A Loom
I sailed the fiord like inlets between Powell River and Drury Inlet.
The land itself  spoke from mountains, torents, islet
From bird song and bear splashing fishers
From rutting moose and cougars sharp incisors.
The...

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When guys get so old
pubic hairs
are as long as penises

It's not time to grow
a longer and fatter, more drivable,
penal delivery system
promising retributive rape
of an entire planet.

It is time to trim back
over-Yanged investment hedges
blocking more pedestrian-friendly
RightBrain...

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The Great Falls of the northern Plains is actually a chain of five seperate waterfalls
varying in height and majesty extending over 12 miles,
they also confirm that the right river was chosen,
we had hoped that the...

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The Nez Perce Indians who lead lean lives on these knolls and river brooks
have a style of soul that sneaks into the songs of the sun
and plays on the prayers in the patience of their...

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William Branton has just run into camp as if the earth is falling away from his heels,
he has spotted a large cluster of Indians to the south moving towards us on horseback, 
an estimated 100...

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A Perfect Day to Learn 

We took our late lunch in a wooden cabin at the foot of the mountain where exotic foods in sumptuous meal were served. I enjoyed immensely the fried fish and...

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The Columbia is a smooth beast that has introduced us to a semi tropic clime
that produces a bewildering humidity even for November
and a panoply of tree types that canopy the mossy turfs
from a sky that...

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Memory of Lost Innocence 

We were just kids running down the hillside, with youthful spontaneity marking the passage of time. No beaten path, we just flowed where our little hearts took us, wedging our way...

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12 hours of excruciating labor pangs have Sacagawea breathing
into the face of Death,
as she violently shakes her head back and forth, teeth clenched,
sweat boiling and eyes furious
it seems to me that she is detetmined to...

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We came from the beginning, shrouded mists of time and space,
And in this vast and northern clime each found our sacred place.
We were our country’s pioneers, the people of the land,
We lit the flame and...

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Dear me, 
  I breathe you
in the pulse of erased promises ~ 
I'm a shadow in your space 
and not any voice which can be heard
    above restless mists, 
so, when...

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My father was born,
Late on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day,
Inspiring nurses to insist the babe’s name be Patrick,
To which, my grandparents laughed and chose to obey.

Decades later, 
When my parents had their first son,
Though...

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When primeval men were made,
Someone said they were perfect,
But I ask them how plausibly so
Can perfection beget imperfection?
They laughed and I laughed in return.
Some others said they became selfish
And sought independence from their maker,
And rebelled...

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HIS WEALTH

He was renowned for farming 
ploughing lands as large as atlantic  
but his harvests he keeps beyond the sea
beyond the sea all he got

Down here, his roof leaks
his town roads untared
they make use...

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The rivers are racing with a glee of free morning stampede today
carrying the currency of silted centuries and the cool silk of the wind's summer saga,
within my heart I feel the rambunctious rush of wanderlust
this...

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This poem was inspired by the interviews by Earl K. Pollon and S. S. Matheson conducted with native Sekanni peoples who were negatively effected by the flooding of their communal homelands by the building of...

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How can we not have this conversation
where footprints of the poor vanish
beneath the boots of investors, 
and the river sings only
to those who can afford its luxury? 

In Chobe, the elephants roam free, 
but people...

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Exracted from Gerald Nforche's Epic, The Slave's Tale


-Duala, RIOS DOS CAMEROES, 1787-

One fine morning, when love birds flew and sang 
And the valleys with every gaiety rang,
The sun just setting from a misty east
We had...

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In the green Adirondack foothills lies
the haven of our old summer camp,
once a place of adventure and outdoor joy,
and the loud cries of precocious scamps,
their energy you never could tamp,
scurrying ’round on small, rapid feet,
leaping...

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