kazamata 1, 2, 3

kazamata 1

just another post-mazucca's saturday
and the morning regulars are gathered
outside the ex-store—newsstand
and novelties—john and gus not there
and i'm not there either just walking
by with a thirty-some-year-old
expedition backpack filled with books
royal manual typewriter can flag folding
chair for when i have too much backless
stool typewriting of poem art-making
or res time where life slides sideways
like a supervisor's nametag dropped
unnoticed outside a store during lockup
or a studded dog collar in the grass
that may have been a dog's or
a person's—who knows? not me

in the garbage is more art and garbage
box from a tube of burnt umber oil
paint and a folded page–sheet
ripped from an artist's sketchpad
not an anarchist's notebook
and it's not the sandpaper square
gatorgrit aluminium oxide found
on york street along with a trail
of one shoe discards heading
south and the husks of small
fireworks scattered along north side
a ripped canadian flag—not drunk
ripped but torn like the magenta-
coloured capital complex wristband
also found and a small scrap of
fabric printed with music notation
and a red turkish crescent moon
and star—how odd to find in this
fredericton ex-barracks casemate

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kazamata 2

for the container wanted
schneider could build a vessel
like one of his ship hulls
of fired chipman shale—that
rock which looks and feels
like clay—bricks in the walls
and ceiling that surround me
made many years ago—
soft rock so malleable—hit
with a hammer and the
head sinks into the shale
leaves a hole—this is shale
some want to hydrofrack—
to fracture with water until
it releases its tiny gas
bubbles into the american
bloodstream causing headaches
and ongoing economic depression

design a container—a bat house
will not work—to attract donations
for arts programs such as this
casemate artists in residence
replace the sad-looking glass
jar with a [peeling] paper label
with an easy to fill : easy to empty
unlike the heavy shale vessel
it must be stable portable
sit on flat surfaces and be
more creative than another wallet
or purse atop a table or counter

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kazamata 3

caution low clearance
one of the casemate signs
on sprinkler system pipes

don’t know how i’ll display
these poems in the casemate

white feather in a rectangle
magenta spray paint on grass
mick jagger on grass too—no
this isn’t breaking news—singing
something beside fredericton
arts alliance lawn sign dragon-
green with red and white pennants

no crimson banner for england
the end of a paint tube cut
to squeeze out the last paint
inside—a discard from a former
artist in residence—possibly
andrea of this past week now
back to day job in le chateau
top-of-the-hill regent mall

this morning thought i spied
an alien sticker but it was
spiderman’s head alienated
—probably a banana sticker
radioactive spider no tarantula
or black widow inside a bunch

beside it a constructed message
—possibly an artwork—under
transparent tape: rectangle
of faded black construction paper
a smaller white rectangle with
an upsidedown drawing of a tree
landscape atop the black and
a smaller almost boomerang-
shaped of offset printed white
with or r said ba to go eir
of back and a painted i love
a lot of things facing outward