Your cart is currently empty!
READ INDIGENOUS: A Difficult Beauty
The poems in David Groulx’s A Difficult Beauty (Wolsak and Wynn) are honest, thoughtful glimpses of life on a reserve, of the pain and anger of his ancestors, told with subtly dark humour. The Chronicle Herald says: “There is tenderness in Groulx; there is beauty alongside difficulty. But he has thunderbolts to throw—to illuminate consciousness and rock consciences—and he throws them, to overthrow complacency.” Get acquainted with our featured poem from the collection, “Instruments From Oz Or Paranoid Indian.”Â
From A Difficult Beauty by David Groulx (Wolsak and Wynn Publishers)Â
Instruments From Oz Or Paranoid IndianJohn Wayne is trying to kill me
he has a Winchester on his hip
Custer is hiding under my bed
with his saber in his hand
he’ll cut me open
if I close my eyes
I haven’t slept in yearsJesus is coming to civilize
me and make blue-eyed Indians
performing miracles
with gunpowder made out of wine
and land made out of smallpox
the Sorte du Quebec are hiding
in my closet behind wire hangers and
boxes of pictures of my
grandmothers and grandfathers
my aunts and uncles
my father and mother
I’ve set up barricades at the closet doorsThe Hudson Bay Company has been raiding my fridge
I can tell because all the boiled moose meat
and the half bottle of beer are gone
they went to the toilet
and used the last of the Charmin
The police take shots at me when no one
is looking
they point their pistols and wink
they are conspiring to kill me
drag me out to the outskirts of town
and leave me there to freeze to death
I called the media
they didn’t believe me
told me I was paranoid and crazy
and I began to believe them
* * *The AuthorÂ
