In the spring
the ranges of mountains
silhouetted in grades of shade up and away toward the divide
released their snows
and our creek became a torrent.
We'd lie on a point, a firred point that jutted out
over the swirling eddies, below the fall,
and make love.
We'd make love that spring against the roar;
we would make long, slow, lazy, spring-time love
below the fall, against its roar,
on a spring day, on our firred point;
we'd watch the flotsam of the last season
appear as if by magic over the rushing event horizon;
its long transluscent curve seemed an earth-curve
over which we were in motion.
We'd fall upward over the edge
to see what the journey would reveal...
Much ice.
And dozens of deadfalls -- their needleless boughs broken short,
they would spear half their length precariously overhead
then curve down past us
to drive their shafts deep
into the spring fall's whirlpool below.
They'd stand crazily,
then slowly slant down-streamward
to renew their sweeping journey to the sea.
A stench of death interrupted our careless watch,
and it strengthened
until it was as though the whole creek
bore the rot with it.
Nothing appeared over our watery horizon now,
nothing except the fast deep curl of rushing water.
That afternoon we could bear the reek no longer.
We climbed through the rocky-floored bracken
at the creek's flooded edge
and emerged at the old portage trail above the fall.
There, wedged between four or five jammed trunks
was a carcass.
White curl of horn above vacant eye-socket
told of the bighorn ram's wintry fall,
and this spring melt's slow release,
and now, his life relived
in the great, high, rotting stench
of his return to nature.
We stared helplessly at his pyre,
unkindled in the icy creek.
Our fall would be unbearable.

Web Design by Douglas Elves. Water reflection photograph by Linda Jennings.

Dean Morrison McKenzie

McKenzie's a kid from the village; it shows in his themes. His poetry, fiction, music, films and essays are laden with imagery gathered from the world that surrounds small prairie towns. So far he has co-authored two or three chapbooks, read his stuff on public radio and has had his voice used to record commercials and training films. McKenzie's first CD, "Prairie Hejira" was published in 2001 and on November 23rd, 2003, at The Yardbird Suite, he and the band released "The Silver Apples of the Moon". He also wrote the script for "Skipping Stone" -- the AMPIA-award winning film produced by Frame 30, and recently Michael Hamm screened McKenzie's "Night Benz", another short film based on the prose/poem included in this chap book. It was awarded a Silver Medal at the Houston International Festival of Independent Films in the category Jazz/New Age/Spoken Word.

When asked about life as a retired English teacher, he refers to it as a bus man's Holiday. "I've been editing the work of others all my life; now I'm smoothing out my own roughnesses."

Watch for his next chapbook, "The McKenzie Chronicles" and "The Jazz Poet" CD is just around the corner along with a loosely connected series of short stories about the "Urbaniginals". McKenzie is also working with MaxMedia to produce some poetry/art/music videos with the collaboration of Alberta post-modern impressionist Wayne Schneider. Wayne's paintings create moody graphics that reflect some of the darker aspects of McKenzie's themes; the corollary: McKenzie's poems reflect Wayne's angst. Andrew Glover's synthesized keyboards will accompany "His Recurring Night Terrors" in the performance poems.

The submissions in this electronic chapbook include pieces that you may have read, heard or seen elsewhere, but they were nearly all published on this web site or in the Stroll Archives before they made their way into recordings, public performances, hard copies or film scripts.

POEMS

Lysergia: The Day of the Ergot

INDIAN SUMMER HAS GONE

The Wild Cattery

A Dance Danced

John O'Winter

Equinox -- Long Beach

Modestly! Modestly!

Honouring Christian Bok

Shades of Another Time

Another Pedestrian Poem

Etching the Blank