Everything Harry tells You is a Lie.

 Everything Harry tells You is a Lie.

each word

wrong in every way

twisted

like the knife. 

Dripping sarcasm

after it

gutted you. 

Everything Harry tells You is a Lie.

Old Ghosts

The heat makes me melancholy.

This ethereal blanket,

Of sweetgrass scents,

Of dry wind caresses,

Of twittering birds,

And cars bouncing to the bass-line.

Whispering the past and

Summers long gone,

Before I understood

Loss and what ifs,

Before the scars,

And the voices,

Clamouring,

Nagging,

Reminding me,

Of a time when,

I watched from a window,

As teen aged boys,

Skateboarded down the middle,

Of South Street,

At midnight,

Laughing,

Of a time when the Sou'Westerlies,

Brought warmth forcefully,

To the normally cool nights,

And we listened to Alan Parsons,

Still caught up,

In each other's spell.

 

This heat makes me melancholy,

As it stirs up,

Old ghosts.

I don't know how.

I honestly
do not know
how
to reconcile
being
a proud Canadian
with a country
that did what it did
(and
is still doing)
to its indigenous peoples.
I don't know
how
to look at my country's flag
with any sort of joy
knowing
there are the bodies
of horribly abused children
buried deeply
and scattered wide.


I don't know
How
I can stay silent
When the government
And the church
Hide the truths
Instead we hear
There's no problem
Nothing to see here
Go away.
Yet...
we walked across
your lands
and conned you
as we went
with all the lies
with no honouring
of Peace
or treaties
Just brutality and hate
Dirty water, stolen peoples
And the murdered.

So tell me, please,
All you white guys in power
All you elevated scholars
All you racist supremacists
All you silent observers
How do I find
peace?
How can I atone
for the sins of the past
The sins of your past
Of my past too
I am part of this
I am partly to blame for this
And I don't want this
burden but it's mine
all the same.  

I honestly do not know
how
to reconcile
being a proud Canadian
with a country
that accepts Genocide
and then
covers it up with
thoughts and prayers
regrets
and flags half mast.
There can be no pride
For a country which,
did what it did
to the children,
the women
and the men
of the first nations peoples
on this land
we call home.  

Remains of 215 children found buried at former B.C. residential school