Queen's University,
500 students share 300 skeletons, four or five of
which have to be replaced every year although the head of
the anatomy department says the students take good care of them.
Anatomists say it would be extremely hard to duplicate the surface
details with plastic skeletons but the option may have to be considered.

READING THE TIDES: PETROGLYPH PARK

" ... A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun
itself out in his brain ... a promise
that the rock of the world was founded
securely on a faery's wing."
THE GREAT GATSBY

Perceiving the universe
as an orchid stem,
wild hibiscus
crane & heron breaking water
--voyage of elliptical, pea-shaped
canoe down dancing images of
the underworld.

This temperature charged,
climate-controlled glass
geode designed to war on
moss and stone munching
aphid lichens seems everybit as
fanciful as any animal totem.

Grim crevice in the rock
(animistic female orifice)
fertility turtle swollen with
eggs carrying Earth thru
gorged labours of darting
salamander & the spaceman snake.

And coming to that rushing sound,
(subterranean, evocative stream)
or so Algonkians, pensive & puzzled,
paused for a thought encased in
deep, riverine bowels.

Glass slipper, blue guitar
--Silent Lake with something
of wild dimensions in Warsas Caves
(Cyclopean boulders), Serpent Mounds,
this runic enchantment with
glyphs & a cabalistic moon of May.

FABULIST

Riel veritably in a cockpit--
Gabriel Dumont with his buffalo robe
peeking from behind
a blind at Duck Lake
all ingredients intact,
a gallow's walk inevitable
given a series of probable givens.

Given Riel is an illusionist
figuring 3 days back from the grave
--that an early prototype of the Gatling gun
is in effect, that a Ghost Dance
cannot stop bullets.
Superior numbers & discipline'
mandate the West will cringe
to the Queen's Red Coats;
what's more, the iron horse
icon "talking leaves" & the
superficiality of running
a plow over the land's back
all take their calculated toll.

By some obscure, parboiled magic
Riel is transformed to a living
room of today:
heir apparent to the French Canadian
empire (nightmare) or yuppie visionary
illuminaire?
In the Dominion soup kitchen,
the rest of the country acts
as a beggar clutching another pot.

ACE OF S