6/24/2020 POETRY: ARMAND GARNET RUFFOA SONG CALLED EVENING Enduring a life not lived she tried to sing a song one evening, but what came out broke her heart and turned her into water. Loneliness filled her body. It so happens that the more she moved into it the more she began to leak. Gasping for a remedy she hugged her sleeping babies, but it didn’t work and in the gloom she become a river, then a rapid, turning into a torrent. She could not contain himself, it was past eleven, and there she was past the place of returning. Coming our way the size of a mountain. The polar caps are melting the water is here Poor man and rich will taste their fear. It was a simple song, maybe a country song, or a rock song, or a song for a drum. What she did know is that it filled the core of her being. A song spilling out of her heart, her eyes, her mouth, her ears. Swept away she flowed with such force that to her astonishment she found herself knocking down things – finally! she thought as she collided with churches and schools, apartment buildings and grocery stories, corner stores and offices, malls and police stations, you name it. The bible people gathered to pray While others danced and sang, and they all had one thing to say the end of the world is here, the end of the world is here. Oh my babies, she thought, stretching out her arms in front of her as she had been taught when she was a little girl. Oh my. But that old feeling of emptiness, disempowerment, shame, was fleeting because in the moment she felt for the first time who she was, and she liked it. Why hadn’t she been taught this? She knew. She flowed with power, and she was going to use it. Hell yes. Water is power. Water brings beginning. That much she knew. I’ve seen it it’s true there is no denying. From each single wave they’ll be no hiding. It will strike with all the force of creation. If only she could remember more of the words, but it was getting late and it was time to return home to snuggle her babies, tidy the place, maybe watch some tv. It was time to pull the curtains aside. Time to clean things up. Time to make her own way. Nobody was going to do it for her. It felt good to stretch her entire being. She could do it, she could make things sing as she plowed through them. This was living. This is what would get her through another day. Oh, how she loved her two babies. She would give them the world. MEMORIAL We turn on the tap without a thought and with a weary sigh we greet the day with things (to do) while the water runs out and we stare like robots (as we fill our coffeepot). And daydream of this and that but never all the ways we turn on the tap without a thought. Is it because we think everything can be sold and bought as a reward for our hard work with our hard-earned pay? Content to fill ourselves with things (to have) while the water runs dry. I can attest it is true I have seen the yachts. The lakes go foul while the speedboats play And we continue to turn on the tap without a thought. With resolve there comes a time to connect the dots because the power that is presses to sway and obscure with things (desired). They make us dream we’ve hit the jackpot a continual onslaught but those who see know it is time to take a stand breakaway for we cannot continue to turn on the tap without a thought And submit to a life of things that are (desired or not). SENTIENT Between land and water so glassy not a ripple to disturb what you see, a plume of green tendril sweeps across your legs like an invitation, an invocation that awakens your body, numb swimmer of absolute beginnings and endings. Into this morning you go naked and clear to bedrock propelled by a shard of beauty, of what little is left after such a long drought. What is it that cuts through you through the exhausted surface to a fourth dimension where fish, turtle, loon, serpent mingle below a necklace of cottages, and – lo and behold – sprout from your limbs, your trepidation, disbelief, wonderment, nothing less than a terrestrial gulp the size of a lake as you continue harder than ever to swim on. "Sentient" from Treaty #, Wolsak & Wynn, 2019. Armand Garnet Ruffo was born and raised in northern Canada and is a member of the Chapleau Fox Lake Cree First Nation. He is recognized as a major contributor to both contemporary Indigenous literature an Indigenous literary scholarship in Canada. As an educator, he is currently the Queen’s National Scholar in Indigenous Literature at Queen’s University in Kingston, On. As a poet, he was honoured in 2016 with a “Lifetime Membership Award” from the National Council of The League of Canadian Poets.
He is the author of numerous books including Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing Into Thunderbird, a finalist for a 2015 Governor General’s Literary Award, and Treaty #, a finalist for a 2019 Governor General’s Award. His latest film is a collaboration called “On The Day the World Begins Again,” a short video poem about Indigenous peoples’ incarceration, which premiered at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival in 2019. It can be accessed at https://vimeo.com/336947329. He most recently co-edited An Anthology of Indigenous Literature in Canada (Oxford U Press, 2020). 6/3/2020 POETRY: MANDELA MASSINAYOUNG BLACK MALE Young black male, in panic in view of red and blue On top of the roof, a dangerous crew, violent group Gas lighting you, all lives matter, blue lives matter My weary blues muted by America's white chatter Institutional lies, now we're institutionalized Thirteenth amendment, blacks used by the whites Still locked up for grams, dope runners with no bodies Thoughts that jog in my head is that I might be Arbery How swift would cops make Maya Breonna Taylor? Well suited for destruction, who's Uncle Sam's tailor? Haunted by thoughts of dad lost, his poor boy Might go George Foremen on killers of George Floyd Say race don't matter? you made race matter Once you started spilling African plasma American heroes? NO, just protected villains sir Making a killing, making all these killings occur My name is Mandela Massina. I am a Canadian student of Congolese descent at Western University, in London, Ontario Canada where I study English Literature and Creative Writing. In response to the unjust murder of George Floyd, I wrote this poem as an attempt to express my thoughts. It is the most honest I have been in a piece of writing.
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