Tuesday, February 08, 2022

Testimonial

 

 

1.

This unfiltered racket, convoy               ; an occupation

surpassing Parliament Hill,

harassing residents, businesses
, and Centretown’s patience. An exhaustion,

granulated. Go home,                               truckers. Ground up
, powdered. Your gods constructed                 purely

to falter. Sit, set                 loose, this               February chill.

 

2.

Abandon                                      as precise a map
as one might offer. Where is food, gas, lodging? Unmasked, demand

; they pitch and swagger. Locals mention                   all night horns,
assaults         , an apartment lobby set on fire, 

as rocks strike ambulances           ; of protestors 

defecating on residential doorsteps, snowbanks. A steady stream of urine
on the tomb

of the unknown soldier. A confusion

of Confederate flags. If this is freedom            : I think
that word                means something different

than you think it means.

 

3. 

Legislative layers, flay: It’s just                           a city, darling. Blockades
matter, anti-matter. Tropes         

of a land, locked     , frozen. Overwhelmed. Authorities
pause, their                       tongues

in constant motion. Illusion, impulse. An insurrection
of this long, blue berth. Otherwise                  ubiquitous bylaw officers,

mysteriously absent.

 

4. 

A social contract. The needs                  of the many, or

the few. The one. Voices to a page, caboodle. How 

to tame such temper. Rage, rage. Everyone                agrees, except
for how to implement. They storm, we fury,

bureaucracy, impedes. If logic                outweighs               any capital.

 

5. 

What part of the heart                           is this?

Render, unto Caesar. Pandemic fuels, the sense to follow 

health advice, regulation. Insulated, from such grace. It fails me.
The ability               to parse out information: daily emails

citing all        my doctor isn’t telling me. Rage,

we rage. Continue. 

This hack bears       certain patterns. A panorama
of sirens        , shouting, air horns. The arrangement            , all.

  

6.

The kids of Instagram                 turn up their nose. 

A hand                    might follow                     : strata. Unpeopled

corners of the imagination. Do you know

where your children are? That disenfranchised
distant family? Desensitized, and what else

we’ve been missing. The limits    of this field. Cling

to the strictures       of a sore throat, cough. We walkabout. All hope,

as you enter.


3 comments:

Bernadette said...

Thank you, Rob! Been looking for an Ottawa poet to express themselves re this. Take good care.

Dwight Williams said...

Thank you for this, Rob.

Wishing you peace and safety!

Audrey Ogilvie said...

Rob, you have covered the waterfront with this one. The whole thing was a disrespectful nightmare. The result of some Evangelical Christians, white supremacists and mostly victims of misinformation. I salute you.