gene rations

gene rations is the working title of new poetry and old photographs. The idea for the project was simple – dive through old family photos, lose myself in their amazingness, pick out the ones that inspire and fascinate me the absolute most and write poems to them, or for them, or perhaps with them. The photo and its poem go together, but each can, of course, live on its own.

The photos have never needed my poems, up to this point, and the poems, if they have any merit, should be fully realized pieces all by themselves. But, like so many things, the goal was to make them better together, or if not better, than just more. When I was first given these photos, that’s what I wanted – more. I wanted to know the story of them, the context, time, place, but I mostly just wanted the people they held there, forever kept in an image though lost in so many other ways. I wanted more of them – to know them or to be with them again. So, here is my attempt at doing a little bit to that end, and to learn, build and find just a little more for each one.

grin

twinkle-eyed and cock sure
this was a man
who had the world by the balls
who looked into the camera
like a cat that ate something
canary or cream

he did have it all
beautiful wife and kids
job at the trains
kind you could retire from
house big enough
to fit even that head

he knew his way
around a pool table
straight to a lady’s heart
with a wink
smirked moustache
he had them all by the balls
cock eyed and
almost certain

(This is my Uncle Ernie 1934 – 2001. To me, he was always a funny, smiling, friendly kind of guy. Family stories say he was a very charming, very confident kind of fellow – also very good at pool.)

bury me at Batoche.

bury me at Batoche
where their old shacks still stand
paint peels from the weathered wood
but inside they smell like sweetgrass
and sounds like whispers

bury me behind them
in the graveyard where
the stones hinge the clouds
and South Saskatchewan River
where wooden crosses
tilt to the sun
and the wind answers
in a language I only know
in my bones
but every name is family
I can still hear them
they crowd around the fiddle
they dance gentle in the grass

(I wrote this poem during a visit to Batoche a few years ago (excerpt here). The photo is from the 80s and was taken by my uncle)

if it were a river (excerpt)

the road moves in
and out of the bush
weaves bends
dissects jackpine
cedar
ever grey around stone
the road
mimics natural curves
as if it were carved by them
as if it were a river

but there’s nothing
organic
about the road
trees were cut down
stumps pulled out
earth blasted
open
death cleared the bush
death and tired brown men
who worked for long hours
short pay
their lives impoverished
by everything but air
space
bush
there was always too much
bush

(The man in the photo is my grandfather, Ernest Vermette 1909-1964. As a younger man, he worked on the roads in the Interlake region of Manitoba for a few years. No one is sure of the date on this picture but likely sometime in the 30s)

mamere (excerpt)