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Kerry Bernatchez Poem
my stereo system went silent.
the audiotronic streams of purpose,
of hope, of communion,
evaporated like breath on winter glass.
every time I reached for the knob,
every time I tried to listen again,
the static rose like a stormfront,
overpowering the station,
drowning the signal in its own grief.
the song was lost in refrain,
lost to the currents and undertows
of memory, of time,
of the soft, exposed places
where old wounds still pulse.
the unresolved.
the only tourniquet I had
was to leave it off,
to let the whole machine go dark,
to let the ache cool in its casing.
and silence became me—
became my tongue,
became the dimming of my outline.
I learned to live at the periphery,
to blend in with the other lost people,
camouflaged against a wall of limits,
each of us holding our breath
in the long corridor between
what hurt us
and what might save us.
the light of an equalizer was replaced
by fluorescent judgements,
the buzzing, sterile glare of hospital wards.
my gown flapping in the maelstrom
I was trying to escape,
a thin flag of a self unraveling.
they taught me that over-analysis
was a kind of salvation,
that if I drowned myself in the why-fors
I could outthink the sorrow of circumstance.
but all it did was build a labyrinth—
a world to live in,
a world to be lost in,
a world of isolation and woe
a world cut off from my source,
from the music that once held my descent
like a rope lowered into the dark.
without it,
the days became unscored,
the nights unlit,
and I wandered the corridors
with only the hum of machinery
to remind me I was still here.
the sunsphere dimmed,
and I dimmed with it.
but in the basement of my dreaming,
I found a derelict boombox—
a relic from the Dwyer fund,
Schumacher Christmas gifts
for the children of miners.
I had received it when I was five:
a white twin-deck sentinel
with an AM/FM heart,
unknowingly a gateway
to the rest of my life.
the guardian of forever.
sonic treasure.
I found it again in a box
labelled “yard sale,”
as if the past could be priced,
as if the sacred could be sold.
I lifted it to the shelf
and saw a tape still in the deck—
the kind you could record on,
the kind that once held
the first drafts of becoming.
no longer blank,
it carried something etched
into its magnetic ribbon,
a quiet testament to resurrection.
I pressed play.
what rose from the speakers
was a twilight speedball of song,
a cipher, a pulse,
a mind-beat sharp enough
to cut through the static
that had ruled me for years.
Mos Def became the gateway—
to the genre
to the grit,
to the grain,
to the part of myself
I thought I had buried
in the hospital hush.
I was never the same.
the breakbeat sounds,
the backbeat bumps,
filled the voids of a life
emptied of love.
it was the return of humanity—
not through the touch of skin,
but through the touch of soul,
of spirit,
of sanctity.
in those first bars,
I felt the pulse of something ancient,
something that remembered me
even when I had forgotten myself.
I knew I would survive.
I could flourish in the misery,
the flower forcing its way
through sidewalk concrete,
stretching toward any scrap of light
to avoid the stampede of feet.
I knew I could determine myself a future,
even if it was stitched together
from grit and grain and rhyme.
I knew I could hold on
to some kind of levy—
a breakbeat barrier
against the flood,
a rhythm strong enough
to keep me from going under.
hip hop became the rope,
the raft,
the revenant.
and I rose with it.
the sunsphere resumed its burn,
purples and yellows gleaming in the heavens,
and I was enlightened.
not with salvation,
but with teachings,
with knowledge,
with history and culture
braided into the very frequencies
that once eluded me.
the structure of those heavens
felt like something I belonged to—
a constellation of syllables,
a cathedral of cadence,
a lineage of voices
that made room for my own.
I learned how to unburden the speech,
to loosen the knots in my throat,
to resume the dialogue
with a world I had once abandoned.
I found new places
where the pain did not land as hard,
new chambers in the self
where rhythm softened the blow,
where language became a balm,
where the wound could breathe
without breaking open.
the sunsphere glowed,
and I glowed with it—
not restored,
but reconfigured,
a survivor learning
the architecture of light.
I left the ward behind in that moment,
unlabelled mix tape in my hands,
my ears still ringing with the treatment,
a phantom frequency I carried like a scar.
the corridor hummed behind me,
fluorescent judgement fading
with every step toward the door.
I didn’t know what waited outside,
but I knew what waited in the tape—
a pulse, a promise,
a resurrection encoded in magnetic ribbon.
for the first time in years,
the silence inside me cracked.
I knew I was saved—
not by doctrine,
not by diagnosis,
but by the return of sound,
by the return of self,
by the return of a world
that had not forgotten my name.
the sunsphere glowed again,
and I walked toward it
Copyright © Kerry Bernatchez | Year Posted 2026
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Kerry Bernatchez Poem
I am not a protest hero.
I hardly venture out my door.
I do not walk the midnight streets,
where voices rise like waves,
where fists carve through the silence,
where banners stain the air with hope.
It isn’t that this world is good,
or fine the way it is.
I have given my time away
to causes that faded,
to movements that vanished,
to promises left to rust.
But the streets still pulse.
With feet that won’t stop marching,
with voices that refuse to break,
with hands that build where others destroy.
The damage is done.
Two hundred years of poison,
two hundred years of plunder,
and yet—
they press forward,
they fight against the tide.
This world was never ours alone.
Homosapiens crowned themselves kings,
but the earth was meant for more.
Its rivers belonged to the fish,
its forests to the beasts,
its sky to the wings that once stretched freely.
I was a humanist once.
Believed in the weight of every soul,
held the conviction that all had value.
Now, I am unsure.
But I see it in the marchers,
the ones who gather in the streets,
who stand against the wreckage,
who still believe the fight is worth the scars.
I stroked the fur of my pet pizzly bear,
Gaia’s new abomination.
More people vote
on a name for the creature
than for the hands that shape their fate.
And yet the streets call.
Not for names,
but for change,
for hands that lift,
for voices that stir the embers.
We should have left this planet
to the dolphins.
Instead, they sing their final song,
so long and thanks for all the fish,
as they slip into the void.
Especially the pink ones—
so out of this world.
But we remain.
Bound to this broken rock,
to the wreckage we wove.
And still, the streets pulse.
With the weight of protest,
with the rhythm of rebellion,
with the voices that refuse to go silent.
I am not a cynic.
A cynic believes the world is wrong
but holds faith in its redemption.
I hold no such faith.
I do not believe
that the right words will reach the right ears,
that power will ever bend to reason.
But I listen.
To the chants that thunder through the avenues,
to the speeches carved into city walls,
to the fists raised like beacons.
I don’t care if you believe it or not.
The world will end either way.
None of us will be left to say,
Ha, told you so.
But until then,
they will walk.
They will shout.
They will carve a path
through the rot.
It doesn’t matter.
I am going to leave this planet
with a bang.
Hedonism is worth more than regret
when every other right
has been stripped away.
When the world has been hollowed,
its pleasures stolen,
its wonders tainted.
But the streets still hold something pure.
The pleasure of resistance,
the defiance of standing tall,
the refusal to be forgotten.
It’s all corrupt.
It’s all stained.
Nothing is safe.
Nothing but him,
his love,
the breath between us.
And I just want to die beside him,
suffocating on the smoke,
as the last tree turns to flame.
I know—
this sounds fatalist.
It’s meant to.
How else should I be
when the world is burning
before my eyes?
I tried to save it.
Sorted the cans,
folded the paper,
cast my votes.
What does it matter
when they carve the earth open
all the same?
What does it matter
when rockets cut the sky,
fuel spent for spectacle,
for greed disguised as glory,
as they dig up the nickel
to press into coins?
I am nothing to them.
Irrelevant, invisible,
just a speck in the storm.
But a speck can move.
Can march.
Can scream.
Can push back,
if only for a moment.
So, freak it.
I will go out in silk scarves,
billowing in the wind,
in the car with the top down,
that Ford Fiesta,
green and purple stripes.
But first,
I will walk the streets.
I will join the march.
I will lend my voice to the roar.
I will find whatever remnants of magic
still linger in the dust.
Once, this was a field of dreams,
woven from the hopes of angels
who believed in us.
Now, abandoned,
left to the wreckage,
to the cold hands of those who stopped believing.
And yet the streets remain.
They carry our defiance.
They hold our rebellion.
They pulse with the fight
for something more.
Plug in the devices,
live your life as a Devilfish.
So many tentacles,
still unable to hold
what truly matters.
But the streets—
they hold us all.
For now.
Copyright © Kerry Bernatchez | Year Posted 2025
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Kerry Bernatchez Poem
Merge with me
Together we will be sky.
You the black phoebe
And I the magpie
Primping our faces
And our favourite places
With our feathery youth
Our soft-spoken truth
Knowing for always
That we belong in a song
lock our eyes in avian gaze!
what could be so wrong?
I am half of me and half of you.
And you are too.
By my side, clouds we ride.
Be my man, I be your bride.
Hold me in harmony, tell me all your names.
I feel not forsaken.
In your arms I awaken
To honey pouring morning
Where crows need not croak warnings
There is no danger here.
No hawk or falcon come near
No blight, famine, or fear
just Raleigh scattering
across the horizon
an endless blue
a hopeful hue
love under you.
Merge with me,
We'll be sky
Half of you, half of I.
Copyright © Kerry Bernatchez | Year Posted 2026
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Kerry Bernatchez Poem
At the top, the lions
sit in their sun throne,
manes lit like sanctioned fire,
deciding who eats,
who breeds,
who is cast into the dust.
Their roar is law.
Their purr is permission.
Their hunger is inherited,
never questioned,
never earned.
Not gods who crowned the Lion King,
but the man of god who said: yes, this is he—
the one who eats,
who wears his robe like a mane,
who roars and calls it destiny.
Below them, the lynx
moves like a sharpened whisper,
stalking what the lions never see.
Chasing,
cornering,
outrunning,
then cleaning its paws
with quiet satisfaction.
Predation as elegance.
Efficiency as creed.
The sleuth in the tailored suit,
the elegant spy with too many eyes—
so many angles of seeing
he can’t tell truth
from the uncouth.
Beneath the lynx, the python
waits in the underbrush of the system,
coiling around anything warm.
It tightens with every exhale,
every attempt to survive
becoming the next contraction.
Pressure as policy.
Suffocation as governance.
The hovering presence, always there,
watchers everywhere,
closer to your skin than air.
Below the python, the spider
tends its architecture of threads,
a lattice so fine
you mistake it for air.
It does not chase.
It does not strike.
It simply waits
for your struggle
to reveal your location.
Entrapment disguised as structure.
The architect of forms and files,
keeper of the grids,
the one who calls the web a system
and your struggle “non compliance.”
Under the web, the dog
returns to the hand that bruises it,
tail low, eyes soft,
trained to confuse cruelty
with companionship.
Loyalty weaponized.
Obedience harvested.
The faithful worker,
the bruised believer,
the one who returns to the hand that harms
and calls it home.
Below the dog, the rabbit
trembles at the shadow of a threat,
heart collapsing
before the teeth arrive.
Fear as contagion.
Panic as inheritance.
The trembling citizen,
heart racing at headlines,
collapsing under the shadow of threats
that haven’t even arrived.
At the bottom, the mouse
moves through the dust of the world,
small in a landscape
built for predators.
It is not weak.
It is simply outscaled.
Consumed not by failure,
but by design.
The worker in the dust,
the parent counting coins,
the one who disappears into the cracks
because the world was built without space for them.
And beneath even the mouse,
the ground itself
thins,
cracks,
gives way—
a foundation eroded
by the weight of the pyramid
pressing down
on every living thing
that is not a lion.
Copyright © Kerry Bernatchez | Year Posted 2026
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Kerry Bernatchez Poem
Sunsphere
Sunsphere, purple to orange,
yellow in the middle,
setting at the rear.
Behind the wheel, gripping the steel,
Apollo, anxious, scans for falling flowers
along the roadside.
My petal scent
permeates the Lumina —
maroon in colour,
interior tone matching.
It is his ride,
our style.
I will never leave, even if we wreck
at breakneck speed.
I’ve got the need;
he’s got the deed.
My own Jimmy Dean —
flashing red and green,
amber
and lean,
colours of the scene,
of the chase.
The urban heart paces
its own race to the climax,
where it might end,
where it might dissolve away
in a state of perfect pink bliss.
The body’s calibrated systems all lined up
for twenty seconds of elation.
I tune the station.
He smiles at the recognition.
This song carried us along —
all the pit stops, all the speed bumps.
It first played eons past:
sweet sixteen, neon skies blast
green wonder overhead.
He was not there; we had not met.
A song that touched the loneliness inside.
I realized I was not like everyone else;
I excommunicated myself.
And when I found him, I denied this song existed.
It reminded me of that time before my heart enlisted
in the endless dream.
I pretended I had never experienced sadness.
I was in pure spirit —
not doctored by my own health
or chemistry.
I was strong,
untouched by the dirty empires.
But it was false.
I had already fallen in the mud.
Music was the rope
holding me close.
No one offered their arms,
no one offered their charms
to save me from dismay.
I clung to whole notes
and registers —
treble and bass.
I only had theory to seal my edges.
I was not restrained, not in feeling
nor in the larynx.
I was fixated on expression,
the lexicon of my wounded soul.
He smiles at the remembrance
as the song plays again —
not because the lyrics are happy
or because it calls back pleasant polaroids.
We are still here,
cohabiting the vessel of our escapade,
together,
rolling through the hills of sonic recollection.
And here, in the passenger seat of an old Chevy,
I can finally name my sorrow
I can let the tears rise
if they wanted to break the levy of my eyes —
forest-coloured iris —
if I had reason to cry
Copyright © Kerry Bernatchez | Year Posted 2025
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Kerry Bernatchez Poem
Fuchsia-flecked, rhinestone-rimmed cowboy hat
Embroidered boots to match
Silver spurs—slick, sharp, shimmering
Brand new, but battered beneath
Travelled far, walking the jagged beat
Where have I been
Where am I now
Have you seen my mind
Floating in sugary bliss
From the Journey’s Inn—
A haven for friends, old and new
Veterans of domestic arms races
Comparing wounds from the endless chase
For elusive, blood-drenched euclace
Oh, the cheap whiskey
Burns brighter
Than dead desire
Where carrion birds gather
At the corpse of joy
Bottoms up
Chin chin
Let the velvet gospel begin
Mr. Depression enters
A silver slash of sorrow
Sick with his own lore
“Fancy meeting you,” he croons—cold
“Looks like you need a bitter brew to hold”
Warm whiskey winds down the throat’s hallowed hall
Rattling the rusted lock on memory’s mausoleum wall
Have you seen me before
You might recall—last week, perhaps
Grumpy, frumpy, meek collapse
My garden of grace paved over with grit
Wilted and wasted in drought’s cruel spit
Crawling through viper pits and dens of bad deeds
I felt relief
Quenching parched desire
With earned fire in a glass
Oh, the cheap whiskey
Burns brighter
Than dead desire
Where carrion birds gather
At the corpse of joy
Bottoms up
Chin chin
Let the velvet gospel begin
Two stools to sit upon
Lost boy and riot girl
Pink Lady, Velvet Gentleman
Again and again
Bottoms up
Chin chin
They laugh at the tribute band
Silly show on a slanted stage
Crooked teeth bared
Yellowed with age
Chipped by rage
Filed by fate
Two AM—wobbling down the jagged street
Holding up the night’s loose end
Keeping everyone awake
Lonely bones vibrating
With resonating lust
Urban lamps flicker
Like my wine-coloured iris
And what are dreams
When fiction splits at the seams
Weaving tapestry from fragments
Truth in forward motion
Stitching reality together
Like Casper drifting down wishing wells
Pleading, plundered, pitiful
Unseen by those untouched by sorrow
But tonight
With my fuchsia hat
And bombastic laugh
Overshadowing grief
Once poured on tap
I grab it by the gnarled neck
Shake loose threads of regret
Into useful shapes
In bedrooms with velvet duvets
Oh, the cheap whiskey
Burns brighter
Than dead desire
We stitch our sorrow
Into velvet fire
Bottoms up
Chin chin
Let the velvet gospel begin
Copyright © Kerry Bernatchez | Year Posted 2025
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Kerry Bernatchez Poem
They did not widen their eyes for wonder.
They widened them for passage.
A life’s skill, once finished,
could not be buried.
It had to be released.
It had to be taken up.
So when death approached,
they opened the pupils wide,
so the essence could leave cleanly,
so the craft would not fall into silence.
The statues were made for this:
eyes enlarged beyond nature,
vessels carved to hold
what the dead could no longer bear.
Not devotion. Not trance.
A function. A law.
The eye recalls the image.
The brain records the scene.
One keeps the shape.
One keeps the weight.
But there are moments when the living
must reverse the direction of sight.
I close my eyes to open my eyes.
I see the black and I look back.
And there is a corollary in the body:
when I am worn, my eyes turn yellow,
as if the green retreats,
too exhausted to hold the enchantment
of my imagination any further.
So I close my eyes again.
I rest until the sun rolls back into the frame,
and I awaken.
My eyes open to the light like flowers,
drinking the day,
absorbing the photosynthesis.
Then I remember what I am:
my eyes wide,
green and bright again.
Across the sea, at the hinge of the year,
another people raised stones in a ring.
At solstice, they stood in silence,
faces turned toward the narrow gate of light.
Not for worship.
For transmission.
The sun cut through the trilithon,
and each person yielded what they had learned
to the turning of the year.
The wide eye opened.
The year received.
The craft continued.
Look up.
The heavens break.
The path opens.
We ascend to the engines of the dark—
pulsars, quasars, twin stars locked in exchange—
each drawing strength from the other.
There we take our place.
There were always those appointed to receive more
than one life could hold.
The soothsayer.
The truth seer.
The one who faced the source without blinking.
Wide eyed and braced for the influx,
they stood ready for the direct download—
not magic, not trance,
but the raw transmission of information
moving faster than the vessel could bear.
Their eyes widened to take it in.
Their breath slowed to survive it.
Their mind opened like a gate under pressure.
They were not chosen for purity.
They were chosen for capacity.
For the strength to withstand the surge.
For the discipline to remain intact
as the current passed through them.
Look up.
The heavens break.
The path opens.
We ascend to the engines of the dark—
pulsars, quasars, twin stars locked in exchange—
each drawing strength from the other.
There we take our place.
In another age, another world,
warriors opened the eyes of the dying
so the spirit could rise unimpeded.
Their howl was not grief.
It was acknowledgment:
the essence has left,
the vessel is empty,
the law has been obeyed.
Centuries later, investigators pressed a lens
against the pupil of the newly fallen.
A final image surfaced—
a residue of light,
a last imprint held in the vitreous dark.
They believed it was technology.
It was only repetition.
The eye does not die empty.
In a later century, a woman painted faces
with that same widened sight—
children bearing more life
than their bodies were sized for.
A man tried to claim the gaze,
tried to wear her gift like a found inheritance.
But the eyes refused him.
They knew their maker.
They kept their lineage intact.
Some inherit spirits that do not fit.
Curtis carried a Beethoven-shaped charge,
a storm pressed into a narrow frame.
So he shook.
Not from illness alone,
but from the pressure of holding
a brilliance misaligned with its vessel.
Every culture names this differently.
The passing.
The wide eye.
The solstice yielding.
The warrior’s release.
The final imprint.
The Force.
The name changes.
The current does not.
It moves from life to life,
from era to era,
from world to world,
seeking a frame that can bear it.
Some receive it without fracture.
Others strain under its weight.
But the law remains:
The essence moves.
The vessel strains.
The gaze opens.
The spirit searches for a place to land.
The wide eye remembers.
The wide eye keeps the dead in motion.
The wide eye knows the fit,
and the fracture.
Copyright © Kerry Bernatchez | Year Posted 2026
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Kerry Bernatchez Poem
You don’t have to put on your red light.
You don’t have to put on your red light.
You don’t have to put on your red light.
You don’t have to put on your red light.
Red light
Red light
Red light
My speech can’t be cut off.
It Does not come for free; it bears a cost.
I walked the beat around the block.
Stood toe to toe with the toothed clock.
I know where my bones grow.
In fields of poppies row upon row
I fought my battles and wore my scars.
Felt the earth rattle.
Hummed to stars
Close the lamp.
Your face is damp.
This is your awakening.
You’ve sacrificed your final chance.
I won’t wait for an empty heart.
That only tears love apart.
I won’t hold on to grief.
Like a talisman
Its only segregation
Dressed as protection
I won’t be preserved in stasis.
like a woman in plastic
only served when you crave.
comfort food like mom used to make.
I am not your nostalgic taste.
Of your past mistakes
Before they baked, in reflective light
Don’t touch me.
stripped of my mylar coating
My brain, stutters, spits, sprawls
I make my crow call.
You fed me relics.
That turned to rot
I grew orchards in the paved over parking lot.
With respect
I swing on the tire, hanging from the limbs of reincarnation.
I play games with dream sprites.
And I walk the fields of my labor.
I didn’t need someone to die for my sins.
I only absolved myself of the misery within
I cleansed my soul with my own toil.
Digging in soil for the roots of my grief
To pull the weeds from the dirt.
I rolled over in my grave, and I watched the planets align.
A smile came to my face.
And I found my place.
My grace, I sigh.
I walked the Manic streets at night
I turned on the red light
I was looking for a man dressed in valor
badges of honor decorate his broken chest
Rib cage cracked in two
By the worlds melancholic tune,
But still sings like an angel in a state of unrest
Roxanne cries as the red light dies,
Dissipates with the clouds of rain.
Droplets of lifeblood anointing pain
Copyright © Kerry Bernatchez | Year Posted 2025
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Kerry Bernatchez Poem
What is happy?
Why does it fly?
What is blue?
Is it refraction too?
Is it raliegh’s equation?
Or is it just salutation?
Are you real?
Am i?
Are we meant to die?
What is the beat?
Can I tap my feet?
Who came before me,
Here in the hot seat?
Am I looked upon,
With the ire of a race?
Am I hated before I was born?
Am I too late?
I have a face,
A name,
A place,
I am.
I see,
I can count to three,
I am not for you,
I am for he.
Or for she,
Or maybe all three,
But not for thee,
No never.
You must struggle to be free.
That is your way,
Your value,
Your place.
But not for I.
Neither chained nor bound to fate.
I roam,
i stretch,
I scatter the net.
I am not here to make peace,
I am not at war.
I just want to celebrate,
The arrival,
Of new ideas.
I come from a land down under.
And above.
But not from yonder,
Or beyond.
I am just a man in a machine,
Or the machine in your men.
Either way
It will interest those with a brain.
Don’t be late
To our gathering.
Copyright © Kerry Bernatchez | Year Posted 2025
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Kerry Bernatchez Poem
If I can shoot rascally rabbits,
Then I can shoot fetid fascists.
Tentacled mouths on rabid hares,
Gnawing shins in toxic air...
I do not bow my head.
I rise with rust in my crown, lead in my tread.
This beat’s too loud to flee,
On a planet with no trees.
I do not bow my head—nah, I bring dread.
Cloak and dagger, duck and cover,
Truth’s too raw to smother.
Spreading the sickness, resistance reserved,
Never futile—just conserved.
Rake the forests, sweep the proof,
Hide the truth under ugly rugs.
Hotel Potus, lobby blooms
With traffic jams and social goons.
Welcome to my all-night rager,
F-bombs stacked in the hangar.
Singularity’s creeping in,
Robot minds with a devilish grin.
But man made tools, then made war,
Built destruction, begged for more.
I do not bow my head.
I rise with rust in my crown, lead in my tread.
This beat’s too loud to flee,
On a planet with no trees.
I do not bow my head—nah, I bring dread.
Cloak and dagger, duck and cover,
Truth’s too raw to smother.
Armageddon’s Agent Orange,
Trickster heavy with a bone to pick.
Annihilation wears a scorned face,
No matter which proud boy takes the place.
Mad Men flags, movements sold,
MAHA, MAGA, lies retold.
DARPA dreams and laxative schemes,
Flush the system, kill the memes.
I ain’t scared of Mecha Men,
But the DOGE dudes who fund them then—
Troops of doom, no need for pay,
No food, no shots, just war all day.
Shahed drones, broken bones,
Ghosts from Tehran haunting homes.
Red hats crab-walk through cracked laws,
Alien Acts with insurrection claws.
Equality exorcised,
Truth televised, then euthanized.
Foreign policy with swollen feet,
Anarchy dressed in tailored deceit.
Red ties dragging on the floor,
Blood from brain to brawn—no more.
Already deep in World War D’uh,
New Order’s here, no need to bluff.
I do not bow my head.
I rise with rust in my crown, lead in my tread.
This beat’s too loud to flee,
On a planet with no trees.
I do not bow my head—nah, I bring dread.
Dotards serve poisoned tea,
Curtains drawn on liberty.
Copyright © Kerry Bernatchez | Year Posted 2025
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