face 2 face

in this world, you're going to want more than one face
and more than one dress
and more than one tongue

that's where jesus got it all wrong:
he didn't dress for the occasion
and he didn't mask up.

in this world, you're going to want to dabble in contradictions
in science and in magic
in both destruction and creativity

and in this world
i will radiate love
from every cell in my body
out
towards every enemy in uniform
and every villain in a suit
with infinite patience and sympathy

but you'd better fucking watch your step
if i catch you when i'm wearing black.

sticks and stones

hope is a stone i sometimes find myself squeezing,
and i feel the slightest of tears
in the extensor digitorum of my forearm,
reminding me that what has been lost and damaged
must return stronger still.

this flexion and extension of broken muscle
acting against solid rock
is happening at the edge of the world,
right now,
in an empty forest
without light or trees,
and these arms, with everything else connected,
are naked.

there was a time i might have danced
and expected the world to dance with me,
but now we must squeeze at stones,
because everything is dead
and there is nothing else left to do.

recombination

let the chips fall where they may
scatter, and make patterns

to love someone
to be ejaculated into
to blend DNA
to half lose yourself
to shuffle the deck

to gamble your soul in some doubly twisted game
of sex and babies
and dominant alleles

and then you are gone
and there's this completely new person
who is you, but is not you
the sum of its parts
-or perhaps the product-
new, but not new

childish odds weighing up, mortal,
in the inescapable dialectic of meiosis.

St. Paul des Métis and its message to the universe

Originally known as St. Paul des Métis, St. Paul is a town in east-central Alberta, Canada. The community was originally founded as a Métis colony in 1896, but the colony later dissolved sometime between 1905 and 1909. Since then the area has been made available to other groups, primarily the French-Catholic. The 2012 municipal census counted a population of 5,844.

St. Paul is home to the world's first UFO landing pad, built as a centennial project in an effort to attract both tourists and Martians to the municipality. The pad consists of a raised platform with a map of Canada embossed on the back stop, consisting of stones provided by each province of Canada.

On June 3, 1967, Paul Hellyer, Minister of National Defence, flew in by helicopter to officially open the Pad. The pad was one of over 100 Centennial Projects organized by the town. The sign beside the pad reads:

"The area under the World's First UFO Landing Pad was designated international by the Town of St. Paul as a symbol of our faith that mankind will maintain the outer universe free from national wars and strife. That future travel in space will be safe for all intergalactic beings, all visitors from earth or otherwise are welcome to this territory and to the Town of St. Paul."